Drugs to treat tuberculosis have been around for more than 75 years, yet it remains the world’s top infectious disease killer. A big obstacle has been testing. It’s either inaccurate—missing up to half of all cases—or requires expensive laboratories that are not widely available in the countries where most people with TB live.

This could change with the arrival of a portable device called MiniDock MTB that can deliver accurate test results in less than half an hour.

“For patients who can’t produce sputum, like children or people with HIV, tongue swabs move the needle from ‘no diagnosis possible at this clinic’ to ‘accurate molecular testing here now,'” said Adithya Cattamanchi, MD, MPH, a professor of Medicine at UC Irvine, adjunct professor at UCSF, and co-lead author of the study.