By mimicking nature's own sensing mechanisms, bioengineers
at UC Santa Barbara and University of Rome Tor Vergata have designed
inexpensive medical diagnostic tests that take only a few minutes to perform.
Their findings may aid efforts to build point-of-care devices for quick medical
diagnosis of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), allergies, autoimmune
diseases, and a number of other diseases. The new technology could dramatically
impact world health, according to the research team.