Disposable Smart Lab on a Chip for Point-of-Care Clinical Diagnostics

TLDR

The study develops a disposable plastic biochip with smart passive microfluidics, on‑chip pressurized‑air power sources, and an integrated biosensor array for point‑of‑care clinical diagnostics. The chip employs smart passive microfluidics and on‑chip pressurized‑air reservoirs for precise volume control, eliminating complex pumps, and is paired with a handheld analyzer that reads the integrated biosensor array. The device successfully measured partial oxygen, glucose, and lactate in human blood, and the handheld analyzer is the smallest multiparameter point‑of‑care system to date.

Abstract

This paper presents the development of a disposable plastic biochip incorporating smart passive microfluidics with embedded on-chip power sources and integrated biosensor array for applications in clinical diagnostics and point-of-care testing. The fully integrated disposable biochip is capable of precise volume control with smart microfluidic manipulation without costly on-chip microfluidic components. The biochip has a unique power source using on-chip pressurized air reservoirs, for microfluidic manipulation, avoiding the need for complex microfluidic pumps. In addition, the disposable plastic biochip has successfully been tested for the measurements of partial oxygen concentration, glucose, and lactate level in human blood using an integrated biosensor array. This paper presents details of the smart passive microfluidic system, the on-chip power source, and the biosensor array together with a detailed discussion of the plastic micromachining techniques used for chip fabrication. A handheld analyzer capable of multiparameter detection of clinically relevant parameters has also been developed to detect the signals from the cartridge type disposable biochip. The handheld analyzer developed in this work is currently the smallest analyzer capable of multiparameter detection for point-of-care testing.