Discovery: UK scientists discovers USB disk that can measure HIV[photos]

A group of scientists from Imperial College London and DNA Electronics, have developed a disposable USB Memory Stick that can take a drop of blood to determine the amount of HIV Virus in the blood. According to the Washington Post, the revolutionary gadget can be plunged into a laptop or other electronic devices to detect a patient’s HIV virus quantity and status through the help of electrical signals. The scientists disclosed that if the technology is perfected, it could identify all sorts of foreign invaders in the blood from hepatitis, bacterial and fungal sepsis. It will also be able to measure the levels of HIV virus in a human’s system and help to determine if a medication is effective on the virus or to change to other drugs:

“At the moment, testing often requires costly and complex equipment that can take a couple of days to produce a result. We have taken the job done by this equipment, which is the size of a large photocopier, and shrunk it down to a USB chip,” said Graham Cooke, one of the study authors and a clinician scientist in Imperial’s Department of Medicine. So just like your other take-home medical kits used at home, you can now measure the amount of HIV in your blood as easily as you can check your weight on the scale in your bathroom, run a blood sugar level test or take your blood pressure using a home cuff, all at home. However, the scientists have not disclosed when the new gadget will be available in the market.