First-Of-Its-Kind Device Profiles Newborns' Immune Function Using Single Blood Drop

Newborn sepsis, which is a bloodstream infection occurring in the first weeks of life, is a significant global health issue, contributing to approximately one million infant deaths annually. NEC, a severe intestinal disease causing intense inflammation, is one of the top causes of death among premature babies, with up to 50% of low birth weight neonates diagnosed with NEC not surviving. The symptoms in infants are often vague, making it difficult to diagnose these conditions. However, both conditions can deteriorate rapidly and require immediate medical treatment to improve recovery chances.

Current diagnostic methods to identify and prevent these critical conditions in newborns rely on large blood samples—up to 1 ml, a substantial amount for a newborn—and lengthy laboratory processes. This is particularly problematic for premature infants, whose total blood volume may be as low as 50 mL, restricting the ability to perform repeated or high-volume sampling and potentially leading to complications like anemia. Additionally, traditional tests, such as blood cultures or inflammatory panels, may take hours or even days to produce actionable results, delaying necessary clinical interventions. Researchers have now created an innovative device to profile the immune function of newborns.

The BiophysicaL Immune Profiling for Infants (BLIPI) system developed by researchers from Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART, Singapore) and KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH, Singapore) uses just a single drop of blood to provide real-time insights into the immune responses of newborns, allowing for the early detection of severe inflammatory conditions and facilitating timely intervention. This groundbreaking device addresses the critical need for rapid and minimally invasive diagnostic tools to safeguard vulnerable newborns, especially those born prematurely. The BLIPI device requires only 0.05 ml of blood and delivers results within 15 minutes. In their study published in Pediatric Research, the researchers demonstrated how BLIPI employs microfluidic technology to assess how immune cells change in response to infection by evaluating their size and flexibility.

Unlike traditional tests that merely detect the presence of pathogens, BLIPI directly shows how a newborn’s immune system is responding. The cellular changes detected by BLIPI align with standard medical tests, such as C-reactive protein (CRP) levels, white blood cell counts, and immature-to-total neutrophil ratios. This rapid testing format can immediately indicate whether a baby’s immune system is combating an infection. In the study, BLIPI was used to screen 19 infants at various time points—8 full-term and 11 preterm—and revealed clear differences in the immune cell characteristics between the babies. Importantly, when one premature infant developed a severe blood infection, the device detected significant changes in immune cells, demonstrating its potential for early infection detection.

BLIPI is a portable device capable of providing results directly at the ward or in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), eliminating the need to transport blood samples to a laboratory. This makes the device particularly useful in resource-limited or rural healthcare settings. Notably, BLIPI requires just one drop of blood, which is 20 times less than the amount needed by existing methods. The rapid results offered by BLIPI can help clinicians make life-saving decisions in critical situations, such as sepsis or NEC, where early intervention is essential.

Future research will focus on larger clinical trials to further validate BLIPI's diagnostic accuracy across diverse neonatal populations, including various age groups and medical conditions. Additionally, the researchers plan to refine the device’s design to ensure its global adoption in hospitals, providing a much-needed diagnostic solution for vulnerable infants at their bedsides. Beyond hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and researchers may also use BLIPI in clinical trials to assess immune responses to neonatal therapies in real-time, potentially revolutionizing research and development in pediatric medicine.

“Our goal was to create a diagnostic tool that works within the unique constraints of neonatal care — minimal blood volume, rapid turnaround, and high sensitivity,” said Dr Kerwin Kwek, Research Scientist at SMART CAMP and SMART AMR, and co-lead author of the study. “BLIPI represents a major step forward by providing clinicians with fast, actionable immune health data using a non-invasive method, where it can make a real difference for newborns in critical care.”

“BLIPI exemplifies our vision to bridge the gap between scientific innovation and clinical need,” added Prof Jongyoon Han, co-lead Principal Investigator at SMART CAMP, Principal Investigator at SMART AMR. “By leveraging microfluidic technologies to extract real-time immune insights from whole blood, we are not only accelerating diagnostics but also redefining how we monitor immune health in fragile populations. Our work reflects a new paradigm in point-of-care diagnostics: rapid, precise, and patient-centric.”