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ATM-Style Card to Be Used for Disease-Testing?

by Lee Bains on November 5, 2008 at 08:53 AM

Thanks to researchers at the University of Utah, undergoing a disease test could soon be as easy as looking up your account balance at an ATM, the Daily Mail tells us.

As part of the process, microscopic samples of blood, urine and saliva are placed onto a card that can be read, and analyzed, by a sort of medical swipe machine. The device uses a technology called giant magnetoresistance (GMR), which can detect the 'magnetic footprints' of bodily samples on the card.

At present, the PC-sized reader yields hundreds of test results in mere minutes, a much faster turn-around time than that of conventional methods. With animal testing projected to begin in two years, we might see human testing in the next five, the team says. By then, they hope, the reader will be the size of a credit card swipe machine and available in your neighborhood pharmacy.

It's nice to know that the truck stops of the future will be able to tell us about our impending heart disease while we wait for our McDonald's hamburger to be ready. [From: The Daily Mail]

Tags: future tech, FutureTech, GMR, health, medicine, research, science, smart cards, SmartCards

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