Next-Generation Microfluidic Point-of-Care Diagnostics

Microfluidics or lab-on-a-chip (LOC)4 diagnostic devices have the potential to provide fast, laboratory-quality results to expedite clinical decisions at various point-of-care (POC) settings, including outpatient clinics, emergency rooms, and intensive care units (1). Unfortunately, these technologies remain out of reach in the developing world, where lack of access to quality diagnoses contributes to the enormous burden of disease (2).An obvious obstacle to translating the success of microfluidic POC devices to the developing world is the challenge of designing instruments and methods appropriate for resource-limited settings. For example, the WHO coined the ASSURED criteria for the ideal POC test: affordable, sensitive, specific, user-friendly, rapid and robust, equipment-free, and deliverable to users (2). This is a daunting array of requirements, and some believe that the criterion of “equipment-free” may artificially restrict POC testing to inherently low-performance, equipment-free assay formats (e.g., lateral flow tests) (3) and hinder the use of newer technologies such as cartridge-based POC tests and technologies relying on smartphones. In the right context, these devices can still be cost-effective and impactful.Despite this and other obstacles, there is great optimism that LOC diagnostic devices will eventually save lives in the developing world. The miniaturization of diagnostic tests and systems integration are bounded engineering …