Lurking in the background as a challenge for all of us is the development of lab-on-a-chip technology. This will be an example of disruptive technology that will change the nature of the clinical lab industry. Here is a link to a story about one example of this technology and below is an excerpt from it:
The Accelr8 technology ( link here) is a "microfluidic" lab-on-a-chip designed to manipulate and analyze bacteria without growing them first. Samples are first washed out of the patient's lungs with saline solution in a procedure called bronchoalveolar lavage. The organisms are then separated, suspended in a specially designed fluid, and pumped into the chip. Inside the chip, the bacteria flow into several different compartments -- eight in the current version of the chip -- and are made to stick to a bacteria-friendly surface using an electric current. Antibodies then flow in. The antibodies bind specifically to certain strains of bacteria, and mark them with fluorescent dyes of different colors. The dyes color-code cells from known strains. A microscope monitors the viable cells -- those that are still reproducing -- and the rate at which they duplicate helps to identify their species. In the next step, different antibiotics are pumped into the chambers.... The death of the bugs is confirmed by checking with a special dye. Once the bacteria-carrying fluid is injected into the chip, the entire procedure is automatic-- including the counting of fluorescent-marked cells, which is done by a computer -- and takes less than eight hours.
I make reference to this particular chip not to endorse it but rather to provide a glimpse of the future. Here we have a classic example of so-called disruptive technology (link here) that has the potential to overturn existing technology in the market. For comparison purposes, it differs from sustaining technology that improves the performance of established products. Using the current example of a lab-on-a-chip as it applies to the microbiology lab, the chip (or set of chips) has the potential to replace an entire microbiology lab, some of the personnel working in that lab, and can perform a set of tests in one eight-hour shift rather than multiple days.
Such chips are obviously not yet ready for daily use. However, in my mind, they will be an integral part of lab practice in five to ten years. There is only one way to react to such disruptive technology -- embrace it before the competition does.
Wait a cotton-picking minute!
An immuno-ID of a microbe does not tell about antibiotic resistance. PCR for resistance genes could, but is based on the risky asumption that we know (and test) all resistance genes. I think petri dishes are safe for many years, at least for QC.
Therefore, in real life, micro labs-on-chip are incremental (sustaining), not revolutionary (disruptive).
Posted by: EM | November 22, 2006 at 03:05 PM