Origami-inspired paper sensorALEX WANG
Home pregnancy tests use simple, one-dimensional paper sensors to detect a hormone called hCG that increases at the onset of pregnancy. Now, chemists at The University of Texas at Austin have developed an analogous, but 3-D, paper sensor that can provide results for complex tests such as malaria and HIV and can be printed on an ordinary office printer for a cost of less than 10 cents apiece.
“This is about medicine for everybody,” Richard Crooks, who led the study, said in a press release. The sensor design was published this week in Analytical Chemistry.
The origami-like sensors work like a home pregnancy test—a hydrophobic material such as wax is printed into tiny channels on chromatography paper. Those channels direct the sample—urine, blood, or saliva—to ...
