Portable device can sort and count different cell types

Based on an integrated microfluidics-waveguide sensor, the device has particular potential for difficult-to-detect immune conditions.

The body has many types of white blood cells, each with different disease-fighting roles. White blood cell counts already help doctors diagnose some diseases and monitor treatment of others, including cancer and AIDS, but current cell-counting methods require fairly large blood samples and costly, slow equipment that can be operated only by trained laboratory technicians.

A team at Stanford led by Dr Manish Butte developed the sensor as a better way to screen newborns for severe combined immunodeficiency – a congenital illness commonly known as ‘bubble boy disease’. California’s current method for screening newborns takes three to six weeks to return results, by which time some affected infants could contract life- threatening infections.

By contrast, the new sensor has the potential to detect low T-cell counts, a hallmark of the disease, in a 15-minute test in the newborn nursery before a new baby goes home from the hospital.