2019 Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19): Paving the Road for Rapid Detection and Point-of-Care Diagnostics.

We believe a point-of-care (PoC) device for the rapid detection of the 2019 novel Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) is crucial and urgently needed. With this perspective, we give suggestions regarding a potential candidate for the rapid detection of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), as well as factors for the preparedness and response to the outbreak of the COVID-19.

Optimising the supercritical angle fluorescence structures in polymer microfluidic biochips for highly sensitive pathogen detection: a case study on Escherichia coli.

In this paper, we present, to the best of our knowledge, for the first time, in-depth theoretical analysis and experimental results for the optimisation of supercritical angle fluorescence (SAF) structures in polymer microfluidic chips fabricated from a combination of micro-milling and polymer injection-moulding techniques for their application in the highly-sensitive detection of pathogens. In particular, we address experimentally and theoretically the relationship between the supercritical angle and the heights of the SAF structures embedded in the microfluidic chips to obtain optimised results where the highest fluorescence intensity is collected, and hence determining the optimised limit of detection (LOD). Together with theoretical modelling, we experimentally fabricate microarrays of SAF structures with different heights varying from zero to the order of 300 µm in cyclic olefin copolymer (COC) microfluidic chips. The results show that for fluorophores at the interface of air and COC, the highest fluorescence intensities are obtained at SAF structures with a 163 µm height for a milling tool with a 97.4 µm diameter, which is in excellent agreement with our modelling. A fluorescence LOD of 5.42 × 104 molecules is achieved when using such SAF structures. The solid-phase polymerase chain reaction (SP-PCR) on these SAF structures permits sensitive pathogen detection (3.37 × 102 copies of the E. coli genome per µL) on-chip. These results especially are of interest for applications in hypersensitive pathogen detection as well as in assisting the design of devices for point-of-care applications. Findings on the height optimization of SAF structures also advance our understanding of SAF detection techniques and provide insights into the development of fluorescence microscopy.

A Complete Protocol for Rapid and Low-Cost Fabrication of Polymer Microfluidic Chips Containing Three-Dimensional Microstructures Used in Point-of-Care Devices.

This protocol provides insights into the rapid, low-cost, and largescale fabrication of polymer microfluidic chips containing three-dimensional microstructures used in point-of-care devices for applications such as detection of pathogens via molecular diagnostic methods. The details of the fabrication methods are described in this paper. This study offers suggestions for researchers and experimentalists, both at university laboratories and in industrial companies, to prevent doom fabrication issues. For a demonstration of bio-application in point-of-care testing, the 3D microarrays fabricated are then employed in multiplexed detection of Salmonella (Salmonella Typhimurium and Salmonella Enteritidis), based on a molecular detection technique called solid-phase polymerase chain reaction (SP-PCR).

From Lab on a Chip to Point of Care Devices: The Role of Open Source Microcontrollers.

Microcontrollers are programmable, integrated circuit chips. In the last two decades, their applications to industrial instruments, vehicles, and household appliances have reached the extent that microcontrollers are now the number-one selling electronic chip of all kinds. Simultaneously, the field of lab-on-a-chip research and technology has seen major technological leaps towards sample handling, sample preparation, and sensing for use in molecular diagnostic devices. Yet, the transformation from a laboratory based lab-on-a-chip technology to actual point-of-care device products has largely been limited to a fraction of the foreseen potential. We believe that increased knowledge of the vast possibilities that becomes available with open source microcontrollers, especially when embedded in easy-to-use development environments, such as the Arduino or Raspberry Pi, could potentially solve and even bridge the gap between lab-on-a-chip technology and real-life point of care applications. The profuse availability and extraordinary capabilities of microcontrollers, namely within computation, communication, and networking, combined with easy-to-use development environments, as well as a very active and fast moving community of makers, who are eager to share their knowledge, could potentially be the difference between a dreadful "chip-in-a-lab"-situation, and the next successful start-up. Here follows a brief insight into how open source microcontrollers could potentially have a transformative effect on the field of lab-on-a-chip research and technology. Details in some specific areas of application are briefly treated before addressing challenges and future perspectives.

An inexpensive and simple method for thermally stable immobilization of DNA on an unmodified glass surface: UV linking of poly(T)10-poly(C)10-tagged DNA probes.

Microarrays printed on glass slides are often constructed by covalently linking modified oligonucleotide probes to a derivatized surface at considerable expense. In this article, we demonstrate that 14-base oligonucleotides with a poly(T)10 - poly(C)10 tail (TC tag), but otherwise unmodified, can be linked by UV light irradiation onto a plain, unmodified glass surface. Probes immobilized onto unmodified glass microscope slides performed similarly to probes bound to commercial amino-silane-coated slides and had comparable detection limits. The TC-tagged probes linked to unmodified glass did not show any significant decrease in hybridization performance after a 20 min incubation in water at 100 degrees C prior to rehybridization, indicating a covalent bond between the TC tag and unmodified glass. The probes were used in thermal minisequencing cycling reactions. Furthermore, the TC tag improved the hybridization performance of the immobilized probes on the amino-silane surface, indicating a general benefit of adding a TC tag to DNA probes. In conclusion, our results show that using TC-tagged DNA probes immobilized on an unmodified glass surface is a robust, heat-stable, very simple, and inexpensive method for manufacturing DNA microarrays.