STMicroelectronics provides electronic content of Ebola virus detection analyser
Inspired by the ambitious objective to quickly detect the Ebola virus in the blood at a very early stage, to minimise further transmission, STMicroelectronics and Clonit, in collaboration with Italy’s National Institute for Infectious Diseases Lazzaro Spallanzani, took only a few weeks tto produce a prototype portable analyser able to identify the presence of the Ebola virus in less than 75 minutes.
The portable analyser is based on the Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) molecular biology technique. The next step in development of the analyser is to optimise the point-of-care Ebola-detection solution for large-scale deployment, including minimising the threat of infection during the handling of the biological sample; and lowering costs. This effort paves the way for enabling rapid diagnostic tests for Ebola as well as many other viruses that are much more widespread.
The prototype analyser kit has been successfully tested for compliance with applicable international standards by the National Institute for Infectious Diseases Spallanzani, one of the two Italian institutions designated by the Italian Ministry of Health as a reference centre for care and treatment of Ebola. The kit detects the presence of the Ebola virus with extreme accuracy in just a few microlitres of human-blood samples and the accuracy of the result has been confirmed with a blood sample diluted up to a million times. The high sensitivity of the test allows the detection of the virus at a very early stage, which can significantly help limit the spread of the deadly disease.
The kit consists of four main components:
• An extractor, on which the blood sample is loaded to extract the virus RNA ;
• A stamp-sized silicon IC, developed by STMicroelectronics’ labs in Agrate Brianza and Catania, which acts as a miniaturised reactor and reproduces, in a micrometre scale, the entire process of amplification and screening of the extracted genetic material on which the extracted RNA is loaded, to be then reverse-transcribed into DNA and amplified according to the RT-PCR methodology (see further notes below.)
• Specific reagents, developed by Clonit, that are pre-loaded on the microchip to perform a Quantitative Real-Time PCR (viral load) in compliance with all standards and controls required by the international quality-control regulations;
• A portable optical reader, also developed by STMicroelectronics, which detects the presence of viral DNA in the sample and sends the data to a PC that processes and presents them in graphical form.
In addition to accuracy, the speed and small size of the solution makes it very useful in urgent situations and for “field” diagnostics.
"We are proud to put our innovative capabilities and deep technology portfolio at the service of humanity and to bring our contribution to the fight against a serious epidemic that could threaten the entire world population,” said Andrea Cuomo, Corporate Vice President, Advanced Projects, STMicroelectronics.
The collaborators are continuing, along with other industry leaders in this field, to evaluate an integrated, completely self-contained, and fully automated disease-detection system capable of performing multiple analyses in parallel on a large number of samples. Time optimisation, along with portability, automation, and integration will allow further cost reductions and produce a more efficient process with human intervention limited to sample taking, paving the way to affordable screening of Ebola and other viruses.
Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) amplifies a target biological material, such as the Ebola virus, contained in a tiny sample of blood so it can be detected. The key procedure in PCR is the accurately controlled cycle of repetitive heating and cooling of the biological material that is subsequently evaluated against biological markers loaded on the microchip.
Silicon’s low thermal capacity and the minute volumes of tested samples significantly reduce reaction times and allow the fast temperature cycling that enables quick amplification of complex biological materials without compromising accuracy and reliability.
STMicroelectronics; www.st.com
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