Microfluidics to Address Pandemics - SARS-CoV-2 and Beyond Agenda

Microfluidic Concepts For Bringing More Precision to Point-of-Care Diagnostics
Emmanuel Delamarche, Senior Manager, Spiden AG, Switzerland

Diagnostics are ubiquitous in healthcare because they support prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases. Specifically, point-of-care (POC) diagnostics are particularly attractive for identifying diseases near patients, quickly, and in many settings and scenarios. In the context of infectious diseases, there is clearly an urgent need for bringing POC diagnostics to a next level in terms of speed and precision. In this presentation, I will detail some of the former work I did, while at IBM, on new concepts for encoding flow at the microscale using capillary phenomena, implementing highly miniaturized assays, monitoring flow, and making programmable capillary circuits. Specifically, I will provide an update on “self-coalescence modules” and on how these microfluidic elements can be used to implement fast biochemical reactions involving nanoliter volumes and parallel reactions in just a few square millimeters.

Integrated Workflows For On-Chip RNA Extraction, Amplification and Detection For COVID-19 Screening in Resource-Limited Settings
Nicole Pamme, Professor in Analytical Chemistry, Stockholm University, Sweden

Point-of-care testing for COVID-19 is critical to public health interventions, yet the current strategy of using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) has resulted in far fewer tests being carried out in resource-limited settings; due to it being expensive, labour-, equipment- and skill-intensive. In collaboration with medical researchers in Kenya, we are investigating an on-chip approach which integrates RNA extraction based on Immiscible Filtration Assisted by Surface Tension (IFAST), Reverse Transcription - Loop-mediated Isothermal Amplification (RT-LAMP), and Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)-associated nuclease (Cas)-based sensing for detection of genomic SARS-CoV-2 RNA.

Title to be Confirmed.
Steve Soper, Foundation Distinguished Professor, Director, Center of BioModular Multi-Scale System for Precision Medicine, The University of Kansas, United States of America

Conference Welcome and Introduction by Conference Chairperson
Holger Becker, Chief Scientific Officer, Microfluidic ChipShop GmbH, Germany

RADx-rad: Developing Non-Traditional Diagnostics to Detect SARS-CoV-2
Danilo Tagle, Director, Office of Special Initiatives, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences at the NIH (NCATS), United States of America

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) launched the Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) initiative to meet the needs for COVID-19 diagnostic and surveillance testing, and also to speed its innovation in the development, commercialization, and implementation of new technologies and approaches. The RADx Radical (RADx-rad) initiative is one component of the RADx program which focuses on the development of new, or non-traditional applications of existing approaches, to enhance their usability, accessibility, and/or accuracy for the detection of SARS-CoV-2.  This presentation will elaborate on two RADx rad programs led by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences on 1) pivoting technologies being developed for the isolation of exosomes towards screening and detection for SARS-CoV-2 viral infection due to the similar physical and chemical properties between exosomes and SARS-CoV-2 virus; and 2) developing novel biosensing capabilities using electronic nose technologies to detect unique signatures of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) of those with COVID-19 (Screening for COVID-19 by Electronic-Nose Technology (SCENT)).