On November 10, 2014, the XPRIZE
Foundation announced the winner of the Nokia Sensing XCHALLENGE, the
global competition aimed at accelerating the availability of
hardware sensors and software sensing technology as a means to
smarter digital health solutions.
The winning device, called the Reusable Handheld Electrolyte and Lab
Technology for Humans (rHEALTH) system, can potentially run hundreds
or even thousands of lab tests using a single drop of blood, and
those tests, in turn, can be used to diagnose a range of diseases.
Along with a number of distinguished awards, the $525,000 grand
prize was presented to Eugene Chan, founder and CEO of the device’s
maker, DNA Medicine Institute (DMI), at Singularity University’s
Exponential Medicine conference.
The rHEALTH system reacts to a sample of blood, about 1,500 times
less than is usually required, with a series of nanostrips. These
strips are a bit like pH test strips, but they are on the scale of
blood cells. The system reacts to the blood sample with tens of
thousands of nanostrips, each running a different test, then shines
a laser on them in rapid succession.
The whole process yields results in about two minutes and currently
runs about 22 lab tests, ranging from vitamin D to HIV.