Point-of-Care/Need Isothermal RNA/DNA Detection |
Medical Need
The current corona pandemic underlines the need to improve our abilities to control infectious diseases outbreaks. Detecting the threat and isolating contagious patients requires effective, thoughtfully organized, well-equipped, and importantly, rapid testing facilities. Testing facilities meeting such standards usually employ sophisticated instrumentation available only in big laboratories. The emergence of mobile, rapid point-of-care tests will facilitate the decision-making processes on contingency plans not only in emergency room settings but also for emergency paramedics during on-site patient visits.
Our aim is to develop a lab-on-a-chip device for point-of-care applications based on state-of-the-art isothermal DNA amplification and detection technology. The device is fully integrated with commercially available “smart” portable electronics for detection and validation of viral and bacterial pathogens.
Point-of-Care detection, DNA/RNA amplification, LAMP, RPA, viral and bacterial pathogens
Project team members |
High-tech |
Leibniz Institute for Polymer Research Dresden IPF
Institute Biofunctional Polymer Materials
Abstract |
We propose to develop a small, easy-to-use, and inexpensive lab-on-a-chip device for point-of-care applications that utilizes isothermal DNA amplification and detection technology and is integrated with commercially available “smart” portable electronic devices to detect and validate viral and bacterial pathogens (VirChip). The proposed PoC device comprises a flexible platform that can simultaneously detect multiple common viral and bacterial pathogens in parallel. VirChip will allow for on-site (patient-visit) rapid parallel detection of viral and bacterial pathogens as well as in emergency room settings to dramatically reduce the detection time of currently available technologies and to quickly isolate contagious patients.