10/10/2024 Ben Libman
Bioengineering M.S. student Sydney Khemtonglang and professor Brian Cunningham have developed the PRAM Mini, a portable, low-cost microscope designed to improve healthcare diagnostics in underfunded and rural clinics. Using photonic crystal and gold nanoparticle technology, the PRAM Mini can detect particles at an incredibly small scale, providing test results in just 30 minutes. Affordable and compact, this device aims to make advanced diagnostics more accessible, with potential applications in detecting diseases like COVID-19 and even certain cancers.
Written by Ben Libman
Going to the doctor can be a stressful experience. For many, the worst part comes after the appointment—waiting for test results. These results can be crucial to a patient’s follow-up care, yet we frequently wait a week or longer to receive them. In addition, important tests can be cost-prohibitive. This is a bigger problem in poorer and more rural areas, where samples must be sent further away to get accurate results and patients may not have the financial means to stay up to date on tests.
This was the issue bioengineering M.S. student Sydney Khemtonglang and her team set out to solve. While working in professor Brian Cunningham’s lab, Sydney’s team created the miniature Photonic Resonator Absorption Microscope (PRAM Mini.) The PRAM Mini is a high-tech microscope that can detect particles far smaller than a normal microscope would allow using a photonic crystal and gold nanoparticles. “Imagine you have a shiny surface like a mirror (a photonic crystal) that reflects all light except for one tiny spot where the single gold particle lands,” explains Sydney. “When we shine a light on this surface, the gold particle absorbs the light while the rest of the surface reflects it. What we see is a dark dot (the gold particle) on a bright background. This allows us to detect things at an incredibly small scale - even single molecules!”
The PRAM Mini’s key feature is accessibility. It achieves this in two ways: size and cost. The whole device is only the size of a textbook, making it easily fit into any clinical setting. The PRAM Mini costs approximately $2,000, a price point that could diminish further at scale. This would make it affordable for underfunded clinics that struggle to bring patients test results under normal circumstances. As Sydney points out, “High costs often limit cutting-edge medical technology to big hospitals or wealthy areas. By making PRAM Mini less expensive, we aim to bring this advanced diagnostic tool to more healthcare providers.”
The speed of the PRAM Mini means results will be ready much faster, even at remote and underfunded medical clinics. Instead of waiting a week or longer for life-changing data, patients will receive results within thirty minutes and be able to discuss them with their physician the same day. The ease and cost-effectiveness of this process will increase the frequency of screenings, enabling earlier detection when diseases are more treatable.
In this initial study, Sydney and the team chose to demonstrate the PRAM Mini’s effectiveness on COVID-19 antibodies, successfully demonstrating detection of COVID-19 in animal serum samples. However the potential applications go far beyond that. The PRAM Mini can also be coded to detect other diseases and even certain types of cancers. “With PRAM technology feasibility, we can engineer the photonic crystal biosensor to detect any specific disease biomarkers, such as micro-RNA, antibodies, and proteins,” says Sydney. “Currently, our group is working on improving the PRAM Mini's range of detection for several more types of cancers.”
The research team is currently optimizing the PRAM Mini’s detection for other types of tests. Once these improvements are made and the device gains FDA approval, you might see a PRAM Mini the next time you visit your primary care provider, head to the ER, or even go to the vet.
Sydney puts it best: “We hope that most doctor’s offices and medical centers, especially in regions with limited resources, implement PRAM Mini in their protocols to not only provide faster screening results but also advance healthcare diagnostics. I want to thank Professor Brian T. Cunningham for giving me this opportunity to be a lead on this project and to the Fulbright Scholarship for the sponsorship of my study.”
Read the full paper here: https://opg.optica.org/boe/fulltext.cfm?uri=boe-15-10-5691&id=559507