An Indian born American scientist has designed an innovative highly technical diagnostic kit to diagnose and treat lung, liver and other soft-tissue cancers. The kit consists of a robotic arm to perform quick and cost effective biopsies. In fact the kit is a sort of portable “Lab in box” which can even be used for diagnostic testing of HIV, malaria, diabetes and arthritis.

Bala Manian, an Indian-born American and Silicon Valley entrepreneur, who set up ReaMetrix industry in Bangalore, says, “It is high time for India to do innovative thinking to solve the future upcoming challenges in the healthcare sector, you don’t really need to look to the West for innovation.”

The designing of a new kit is significant, as in the light of recent emergence of drug resistant strains of diseases like malaria, HIV and other diseases causing microbes and viruses, there is a need for diagnosing the emerging strains at the earliest by using a reliable, cost effective and portable diagnosis method. With the discovery of cost effective and robust products, the health-care sector is expected to revolutionize world over in the coming few years ahead.

The box type lab with a robotic arm is critical for blood tests. “I really see this as an opportunity to transform the paradigm in how health care is managed in the developed economies, particularly the United States,” he said.

Bangalore-based robotic arm maker Perfint's chief executive S Nandakumar said, “The Indian markets are totally different from what we see in USA. It is not supported by insurance companies. Here, everybody pays from their own pocket or the government's pocket. So it is tough to survive in the Indian market. We are leveraging Indian market requirements, if something succeeds here, it should succeed elsewhere.”

The idea of making a robotic armed portable lab box came to Bala when he saw an opportunity in the world of medical reagents - compounds that react with chemicals in blood, urine or sputum to help diagnose medical conditions.

In the next step Bala is planning to design a multi-purpose portable diagnostic machine which will be like a neat box the size of a small PC's hard drive. It can be run on a car battery and situated in a doctor's surgery clinic or a small-town medical clinic anywhere in the country.

Using state-of-the-art optics, the newly designed portable lab box can perform CD4 blood tests to detect and monitor HIV in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost of its competitors.

Tests for diabetes and arthritis are also being developed, along with malaria, dengue fever and chikungunya differentiating them between infectious and viral diseases.

With this new device, the test results are available from 15 minutes to two hours. As the World Health Organization said in its report that cancer was set to become the world's deadliest disease, and with 40 percent of the world's smokers in India and China, the company is also planning to come out with cost-effective method of diagnosis and treatment of cancer.

Existing methods of biopsies involve surgery, exposure to high-powered X-rays, significant costs for disposable items or difficult-to-acquire surgical skills. Under Perfint's system, a robotic arm is positioned above the patient, with a CT scan and three-dimensional computer modelling system helping a doctor guide a needle to exactly where the biopsy needs to be taken.

The same procedure can help administer anaesthetic to exactly the right spot and even burn a tumour with electromagnetic waves in a process known as ablation - a significantly more precise method than many other cancer treatments available.