Disease detection is a never ending challenge and the goal is to create new tests for diseases that are faster, cheaper and easier. Tests that are slow, expensive and tough to do, don’t get done as often and diseases that might be cured are not cured. Nanotechnology to
the rescue! Scientists at McGill University have invented a new approach called the QolorEX platform which can be done with saliva samples (no blood letting necessary) and the results analyzed with a smart phone. The QolorEX platform uses DNA amplification and a lot of fancy nanometer-sized fluid handling components to process the sample and image the results. The goal is to make a disease detection system that can be used in low-resource areas where health care is a problem but there is a lot of need.