ABSTRACT
Rapid, sensitive, quantitative and patient-friendly diagnostic tools have yet to be developed for COVID-19 continued monitoring at the point-of-care. Here, we present an instrument-free capillary microfluidic chip coupled to a lateral flow module that is compatible with a smartphone application for quantitative detection of SARS-CoV-2 from saliva samples. The microfluidic chip is fully autonomous, and performs aliquoting, sample metering, and sequential delivery of reagents. The limit of detection is 0.07 ng/mL for recombinant nucleocapsid protein in saliva. This rapid antigen test provides results in less than 1 hour, without sacrificing analytical sensitivity. © 2021 MicroTAS 2021 - 25th International Conference on Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life Sciences. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Our group developed a capillary-driven microfluidic technology called Domino Capillaric Circuits (DCC) that enables instrumentation-free, autonomous, preprogrammed sequential delivery of liquids, and that thus predisposed for rapid point-of-care diagnostics. Here, we present a capillaric chip, made by 3D printing, that automates reagent metering and sequential delivery of sample and multiple solutions to a lateral flow zone including rinsing and enzymatic amplification, and apply it to the quantification of SARS-CoV-2-specific antibodies response. Once loaded, sample addition by the user triggers all the fluidic operations, replicating the multiple incubation and washing steps common to ELISA and producing a colorimetric result visible by eye and quantifiable based on common imaging. DCCs might be further developed into fully integrated POC tests to address ongoing and emerging needs. © 2020 CBMS-0001