For disease detection and treatment, rapid point-of-care diagnostics brings obvious advantages over lab-based screening, particularly for remote locations, such as primary health clinics veterinary facilities and for in-field testing for environmental or Agritech applications.
POC diagnostics testing presents unique challenges; the test must be deliverable beyond the laboratory environment without laboratory instruments such as centrifuges, bulky PCR machines and other laboratory infrastructure. They are frequently undertaken in non-ideal conditions by individuals who do not have strong biotechnology qualifications.
With its eye on equitable diagnostics, the World Health Organization uses ASSURED as the acronym to define the ideal POC test: such tests must be AFFORDABLE, SENSITIVE, SPECIFIC, USER FRIENDLY, RAPID & ROBUST, EQUIPMENT FREE AND DELIVERABLE. These ideals should apply to all points of care and in-field testing.
DNAiTECH is a platform technology. We have set ourselves a clear mandate to meet these criteria, from sample processing to rapid isothermal molecular-based diagnostics.
The next generation DNAiTECH will continue to provide tube-based quantitative diagnostics, and for easy to implement POC testing, microfluidics will be enabled on the same device. Multitarget testing on a single device enables multiple genes to be screened for MRSA/MSSA detection. Microfluidics also allows the incorporation of onboard control reactions, verifying the presence or absence of reaction inhibitors. In the last few years, powerful diagnostic technologies incorporating CRISPR detection systems have enhanced the sensitivity of diagnostics, particular when combined with LAMP or other isothermal methods.
Below demonstrates the detection of the COVID-19 S gene on the DNAiTECH instrument using CRISPR Cas12a detection technology.
Comments