Cue: medical diagnostics at home

Technology is now developing very rapidly, and almost every day there are new projects that five years ago would have been considered the distant future. As an example, the project of a medical laboratory at home, Cue .

And such a laboratory is only slightly larger than a smartphone, to which, by the way, all the received medical data is transferred. At the same time, the functionality of the “laboratory” is quite decent: with its help, much can be diagnosed, from the influenza virus and the level of vitamin D, to pregnancy.
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As a test, various fluids from our own body are used. Well, you know what they usually do in medical laboratories.

Cue - an idea belonging to a two-person team - Ayub Khattaku (biochemistry and mathematics) and Clint Severu (industrial design). Five years ago, Khattak (Ayub Khattak) worked on a project of “genetic barcodes” for plants, and then he also thought about the possibility of creating a miniature virus tester in the human body.

After Ayub Khattak shared his idea with Clint North, the idea arose to create a home diagnostic device. As a basis, the glucose tester in the body was taken, which was reworked into a rather complex device with replaceable cartridges, where the fluids from the human body are placed. Of course, some modules were added, and a device was obtained that could carry out five different tests.



The prototype is able to determine the level of testosterone, vitamin D, the presence of influenza virus, and even the presence of HIV. In addition, the device can determine the level of fertility (ability to fertilize).

After analysis, Cue sends data to the paired smartphone application via Bluetooth 4.0. The application tracks the interaction of the user's activity level with the diet and sleep parameters, and also analyzes the body parameters at the molecular level.

The time it takes for a device to perform a particular analysis is usually less than the time it takes to conduct the same analysis in a conventional laboratory. For example, determining the level of vitamin D is carried out in just 10 minutes. It also takes a few minutes to determine if you have the flu virus.



As for the price of the device, then, according to the plan, it will be $ 199. Cartridges each time you need to buy new ones. A set of five pieces costs $ 20. If you need three identical cartridges, for example, those that work with the flu virus, it will cost $ 30 for 3 pieces. Checkout pre-order while you can either the manufacturer or the Medgadgets .



Of course, this is not the first project to create a mini-diagnostic center. Thus, QuantuMDx is a project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This is a Cue-like mini-lab that can detect malaria, HIV, tuberculosis and some other diseases in as little as 15 minutes. Cartridges are also used here. But QuantuMDx will not be available for sale, it is a device that will be delivered to countries where there is either no medicine or it is in a very problematic condition (some African countries, etc.).



As for Cue, then, unfortunately, the developers provide not so much technical information (although they can be understood), and so far it is impossible to understand how accurate the diagnostics made using such a device can be.



However, soon all this will be possible to find out - the first devices will be shipped to testers at the beginning of next year.