IIT Delhi develops handheld device for early and rapid diagnosis of dengue

A research group at IIT Delhi’s physics department has developed a handheld Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS)-based platform for early diagnosis of dengue and test results within an hour.

The handheld device developed by The GLancing Angle Deposition (GLAD) research group has been successfully tested on clinical blood samples collected from hundreds of individuals in collaboration with ICMR-National Institute of Malaria Research (NIMR), New Delhi.

“This ultrasensitive and handy device has a wide range of applications in the early-stage on-site detection of viral diseases and can produce the final report of investigation within an hour,” said J.P. Singh, principal investigator of the project.

The research work was published recently in journal Colloids and Surfaces B:Biointerfaces 198, 111477 (2021)- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092777652030833X?via%3Dihub

The research work was funded by the education ministry’s IMPRINT India programme with New Age Instruments and Materials Pvt Ltd as the industry partner. The research was published in the journal Analytical Chemistry 92, 2527-2534 (2020) - https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.analchem.9b04129.

The detection and distinction of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1) was also carried out in collaboration with ICMR-National AIDS Research Institute (NARI), Pune, through the handheld SERS-based platform.

The SERS platform was capable of distinguishing different tropic strains of HIV-1, suggesting tropism-based detection and giving HIV-1 test results within an hour.