Harry Potter’s diary inspires self-writing blood paper

A self-writing diary in one of JK Rowling’s books on Harry Potter has inspired researchers to create a paper that spells out a person’s blood type, reports the BBC website.

A team from Monash University in Australia has developed a paper-based sensor that writes blood type as text.

The sensor may help non-experts to interpret the results rapidly, especially in emergency situations and during humanitarian disasters. The study appears in the journal Angewandte Chemie.

The device works according to the so-called ABO system, classing blood samples according to A, B, AB or O types, and also spelling out whether the type is Rhesus positive or negative.

According to the system, an A or B letter indicates which antigens are present in red blood cells.

So someone who has, for instance, blood type A has A antigens, and if blood type is AB, then both A and B antigens are present.

People with O blood type have no antigens at all. At times, people conducting blood tests at home, or even specialists in developing regions, make mistakes while interpreting a blood type test - and these mistakes may have grave consequences, the lead researcher, Professor Wei Shen from Monash University, said to the BBC.

“We found that more than 80% of the population… could not interpret the result even if the result from a perfectly functioned blood typing assay was presented to them,” he said. “But with a device that can spell out the patient’s blood type in written text, people will know their blood type easily.” daily times monitor

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