Researchers have developed a groundbreaking device called the Biophysical Immune Profiling for Infants (BLIPI), which profiles a newborn’s immune function using just a single drop of blood. This compact, portable system delivers real-time insights into an infant’s immune response, enabling the early detection of life-threatening conditions such as sepsis and necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC).
The innovation is especially crucial for premature infants, who are at high risk of developing severe infections. With BLIPI, clinicians can now act more quickly and with greater precision.
Addressing a Critical Gap in Newborn Diagnostics
Newborns—particularly those born prematurely—are extremely vulnerable to infections like sepsis, which affects up to one million infants worldwide each year. NEC, another serious inflammatory disease, leads to high mortality rates in low birth weight babies, with up to 50% not surviving once infected.
Early detection is often challenging because symptoms can be vague, and current diagnostic tools require large blood volumes and lengthy lab processes. For newborns, especially those born at less than 28 weeks, this is problematic. Their total blood volume can be as low as 50 mL, making repeated blood draws risky.
Conventional tests such as blood cultures or inflammatory panels also take hours or even days to return results. In contrast, BLIPI requires only 0.05 mL of blood and delivers results within 15 minutes, drastically improving response times for medical intervention.
How BLIPI Works
BLIPI uses microfluidic technology to assess the size and flexibility of immune cells as they respond to infection. Unlike traditional tests that detect pathogens, BLIPI measures how the immune system itself reacts.
As per Medical Xpress, the changes BLIPI detects correlate with established markers such as C-reactive protein (CRP) levels, white blood cell counts, and immature-to-total neutrophil ratios. This provides a more direct and faster method of assessing immune health.
In a study published in Pediatric Research, researchers from the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) and KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH) tested BLIPI on 19 infants—eight full-term and 11 preterm. The system successfully identified immune response differences between infants and even flagged a serious infection in one premature baby before other signs became obvious.
A New Era in Neonatal Care
BLIPI’s design allows it to be used directly in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) without the need to send samples to a lab. Its portability makes it ideal for use in rural or resource-limited settings as well.
“Our goal was to create a diagnostic tool that meets the unique constraints of neonatal care—minimal blood volume, rapid turnaround, and high sensitivity,” said Dr. Kerwin Kwek, Research Scientist at SMART and co-lead author of the study. “BLIPI represents a major step forward in providing fast, actionable immune health data in a non-invasive way.”
Assistant Professor Yeo Kee Thai from KKH added, “With BLIPI, a single prick to the baby’s finger or heel can give us rapid insights into the infant’s immune response. This allows us to tailor treatments more precisely and respond faster.”
Looking Ahead
The research team plans to conduct larger clinical trials to further validate BLIPI across different neonatal populations and medical conditions. They are also working to refine the device for widespread hospital adoption worldwide.
Beyond hospitals, BLIPI holds promise for pharmaceutical companies and researchers. It can be used in clinical trials to monitor immune responses to neonatal therapies in real time—potentially transforming pediatric drug development.
“BLIPI exemplifies our vision to bridge the gap between scientific innovation and clinical need,” said Prof. Jongyoon Han, co-lead Principal Investigator at SMART CAMP and corresponding author of the study. “By delivering real-time immune insights from whole blood, we’re not only accelerating diagnostics but also redefining how we monitor immune health in fragile populations.”