In One Hour, For Less Than a Buck, a Sensor Made of Jell-O and Foil Detects Acute Pancreatitis

Gelatin Diagnostics Texas Science

If there were a distinction one could earn for practicing smart medicine on a shoestring, a UT grad student would be high in the running. Using a aluminum foil, gelatin, milk protein, and a cheap LED light--items that collectively sell for under a buck--he’s created a fast, one-hour test for acute pancreatitis.

This test is way faster than existing diagnostics for acute pancreatitis, a condition in which sudden inflammation of the pancreas can cause a good deal of pain, fever, shock, and occasionally death. The sensor is basically a battery with a two-tiered, enzyme selective switch. To test for acute pancreatitis, a bit of blood extract is dropped on a layer of gelatin and milk protein. If there’s enough trypsin--an enzyme that exists in elevated levels in patients with the condition--it eats right through the gelatin/protein mix.

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Science, Clay Dillow, acute pancreatitis, diagnostics, health, jello, medicine, sensors

“We’ve turned Reynold’s Wrap, Jell-O and milk into a way to look for organ failure,” Brian Zaccheo, the UT grad student behind the sensor, told Texas Science. Perhaps best of all, it’s the size of a quarter, costs less than a dollar, and requires no external electricity source (in fact, it is a battery). That means it could go virtually anywhere, providing a cheap means of diagnosing acute pancreatitis in the developing world or in out-of-the-way locales.

[Texas Science]