3 Questions: Lee Gehrke on a new paper diagnostic for Ebola
Once a patient infected with the Ebola hemorrhagic virus starts showing symptoms, it can take several hours under the best conditions, and up to several days in remote areas, to get diagnostic results using conventional tests, such as identification of viral RNA. Further complicating the process, Ebola symptoms are very similar to those of other fevers, such as typhoid and malaria. Because time is of the essence in tracking Ebola and preventing its spread, researchers at MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) are working on a new device that uses nanoparticles to capture the virus in patient blood samples and would offer much faster results. Lee Gehrke, the Hermann von Helmholtz Professor in IMES and a professor of microbiology and immunology at Harvard Medical School, described the project to MIT News. Q. How does your experimental device detect Ebola and other diseases in patient blood samples? A. One can detect...