Point-of-Care Diagnostics 2.0: Standards, Design Automation, and Consumer Electronics for the Next Generation of Diagnostic Devices
Emmanuel Delamarche
IBM Research, CH
ABSTRACT
Diagnostics are ubiquitous in healthcare because they support prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases. Specifically, point-of-care diagnostics are particularly attractive for identifying diseases near patients, quickly, and in many settings and scenarios. One of our contribution to the field of microfluidics is the development of capillary-driven microfluidic chips for highly miniaturized immunoassays. In this presentation, I will review how to program capillary flow and encode specific functions to form microfluidic elements that can easily be assembled into self-powered devices for immunoassays, reaching unprecedented levels of precision for manipulating samples and reagents. I will also reflect on the fragmented approaches that our community has in developing microfluidic-based diagnostics, which is exacerbated by the fragmented nature of the in vitro diagnostic market. Standards, design automation, consumer electronic components, and smartphones may play a critical role in helping to rationalize our development and utilization of the next generation of point-of-care diagnostic devices.
