POINT OF CARE

Bring the test to the patient

🩺

Affordable Cheap enough for the people who need it

Sensitive and specific Few missed cases, few false alarms

User-friendly and rapid Simple steps, answers in minutes

Equipment-free Little or no instrument needed

Deliverable Reaches the people who need it, even far from a lab

The World Health Organization's ASSURED criteria describe the ideal point-of-care test.

LATERAL FLOW

The test strip in your cupboard

A drop of sample wicks along the strip, picks up coloured antibody-coated particles, and flows over lines of capture antibodies. If the target is there, a test line appears. The control line proves the strip worked.

No pump and no power: capillary flow does it all.

CARTRIDGES

A lab in a plastic card

💳

🧫

Prepare

Filter blood, break open cells, extract the DNA or RNA

🔥

Amplify

Copy the target millions of times, by PCR or at one temperature

📊

Detect

Read a light or electrical signal in a small instrument

Sample-to-answer cartridges like Abbott's i-STAT and Cepheid's GeneXpert pack these steps into one disposable.

PCR ON A CHIP

Faster heating, faster answers

PCR copies DNA by cycling the temperature. Tiny volumes heat and cool in seconds instead of minutes, so a chip can finish faster. Isothermal methods such as LAMP skip the cycling entirely and run at a single temperature.

Small volumes make thermal cycling fast, so molecular tests can run in a clinic.

READING THE RESULT

Eyes, phones and electrodes

📱

👀

Colour

A line or a colour change, read by eye

📱

Phone camera

A smartphone app can measure line intensity

⚡

Electrochemical

Electrodes measure a current, as in a glucose meter

The best readout is the simplest one that is accurate enough.

UNIT 14 STUDY COMPLETE

🩺

Ready for the Fab Challenge?

You've followed a lateral flow test, seen what a sample-to-answer cartridge does, and matched tests to settings.