A recent research paper published in Nature Biomedical Engineering shares a new way to study how the immune system battles viruses, requiring only a drop of blood and producing results in under two hours.

The technique, called microfluidic electron microscopy (mEM), is like offering scientists an extremely sleek microscope on steroids that can expose how antibodies latch onto viruses like influenza, HIV and SARS-CoV-2.

The chip, which is the size of a fingernail, requires only a single drop of serum (less than 4 microliters) and 90 minutes to complete the analysis that used to take a week, including lots of prep like cutting up antibodies and purification. It’s like a mini-lab and ultra-zoom camera all in one.

The speed isn’t the only perk. The tool is also super smart, finding more binding sites on viruses than previous methods.

This offers a more complete picture of how the immune system responds to viruses and vaccines alike. The smaller samples make it a game-changer for vaccine development by tracking immune system responses over time.

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