miDiagnostics, which is using silicon chip technology that will bring miniaturized, rapid, easy-to-use, lab-quality tests with built-in connectivity direct to the patient and clinician regardless of location, today announces the completion of a €14m investment round. This technology has potential to deliver rapid test results in multiple settings, including future pandemics.

Researchers led by biomedical engineers at Tufts University invented a microfluidic chip containing cardiac cells that is capable of mimicking hypoxic conditions following a heart attack – specifically when an artery is blocked in the heart and then unblocked after treatment. The chip contains multiplexed arrays of electronic sensors placed outside and inside the cells that can detect the rise and fall of voltage across individual cell membranes, as well as voltage waves moving across the cell layer, which cause the cells to beat in unison in the chip, just as they do in the heart.

One nanotube could be great for electronics applications, but there’s new evidence that two could be tops. Rice University engineers already knew that size matters when using single-walled carbon nanotubes for their electrical properties. But until now, nobody had studied how electrons act when confronted with the Russian doll-like structure of multiwalled tubes.