Panasonic Corporation has developed a new polymer actuation pump and a high-accuracy DNA filter in conjunction with the Belgian Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC), the company announced today.

Electroactive polymers, or EAPs, are polymers that change in size and/or shape when stimulated by an electromagnetic field; I don’t pretend to understand it, and Wikipedia has an amazing explanation on the subject.

Single-nucleotide polymorphism, or SNP (pronounced snip), is a DNA mutation in which a single base pair in a genetic structure differs between two samples of DNA. Single-nucleotide variations in DNA strands can result in complete differences in appearance between two individuals or two species, differences in the way the two specimens respond to disease, or can be completely silent mutations that don’t alter outward appearance at all.

Panasonic’s new inventions can be put together to create a DNA SNP sensor kit that cuts down the time it takes to analyze samples of blood, allowing for their use in the field to make quick decisions for tailor-made medicine. The actuator pump can produce 30atm of pressure with just 1.5V of power with the company’s own layered polymer actuator technology; the high-accuracy DNA filter can analyze DNA at a resolution of fifty base pairs.

Panasonic announced this new breakthrough technology at the 2010 International Electron Devices Meeting in San Francisco, California, today.

Header image by Michael Knowles licensed CC 2.0. Thank you!