Kyle King: Designing a faster, cheaper, and more accurate blood test
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Kyle King is a bioengineering major (‘16) at the University of Maryland. He’s working on a new type of detection method for increasing the accuracy and lowering the cost of blood tests. A member of Startup Shell’s Delta Batch, Kyle was interviewed in the Shell this morning as the second part of our series of posts on Shell startups.
M: Hey Kyle, so what are you working on?
K: I’m developing a chemical test for medical purposes. The device is essentially the same type of blood test you would be used to, but at 1/1,000 of the scale. This new test would take a very small drop of blood to run several tests at once with the same accuracy and maybe even higher accuracy than before. My particular project is looking at how to make this cheaper and easier.
M: You mentioned microfluidics when describing the title photo. How does this relate to your project?
K: Microfluidics are essentially tiny plumbing. A microfluidic chip is two pieces of plastic that are bonded together with little wells inside (see photo to the left). These wells guide fluid through the chip and the unique applications arise from special properties of fluid at this scale. One of the properties that I am taking advantage of is the ability to create tiny droplets. On a large scale, when you pour water into oil, they two fluids won’t mix. This happens on the small scale as well. When agarose (with the same behavior as water) is pumped into oil, little droplets form. As you can see in the next photo, the tiny blue spheres are some of the first beads I produced filled with blue food dye for visibility. These beads are roughly 10 times larger than the beads I am currently producing and what will be used in further experiments.
M: What are people doing with this technology now?
K: Microfluidics are going to be the future of medicine and they are already just starting to live up to that. The biggest advantage from microfluidics is speed. By using less sample, the process becomes incredibly more efficient and the same test can be run in a fraction of the time. Think of a two-day blood test that now can be run by your doctor while at your appointment. Microfluidics have been used in industry for awhile, but Theranos is the first to pioneer broad consumer adoption. They have blood tests that will soon be in Walgreens diagnosing your Cholesterol or iron level. Competitors in the X-Prize competition are also vying for the most “tricorder”-esque device possible based on microfluidics among other technologies. Needless to say, there will be incredible advancements in diagnostics, drug development, and testing in the next few decades.
M: How will your project make an impact?
K: The current devices on the market are revolutionary and are continually pushing what can be done with a microfluidic device. Through my project, I have produced some of the first low melting point agarose beads that will allow for unique approaches to measure a target material. My project’s final goal will be to achieve a much higher specificity that can be used to measure miniscule protein, called antigens. With this type of technology, you can know what disease your body is trying to fight off in just a minute or less.
M: What’s the future for your project?
K: Right now my work is entirely academic. Pursuing microfluidics is very expensive and requires dedicated space, training and equipment. Like other students in the shell, I want to see this product make an impact with everyday users.
M: If there was anything you would like our Launch UMD backers to know, what would it be?
K: Healthcare needs a revolution, this one will be micro.
See more of Shell members online in pictures from our inaugural Demo Day that occurred on December 5, 2014 at Startup Shell. To contribute to the progress of Kyle and other UMD student entrepreneurs, donate to the Shell’s crowdfunding campaign on Launch UMD. We’re looking to reach our two stretch goals by December 13, 2014!
