Abstract

Microfluidics technologies are poised to revolutionize point-of-care medical diagnostic testing.  They provide multiple benefits such as sample and reagent volume reduction, multi-parameter analysis, automated and rapid workflow and low footprint.  In India, small pathology labs and doctor's offices could benefit from these technologies, as it can help reduce errors due to degradation or mis-labeling of samples and improve diagnosis rates by providing doctors with immediate test results about the patient. Further, point-of-care instruments allow for testing in many remote settings which are not covered by the current centralized model, thus improving the overall health of our communities.  Achira Labs has pioneered the development of an immunoassay platform using the many advantages of microfluidics.  The first test panels developed include thyroid and fertility panels and have been validated against gold-standard commercial technologies.   The talk will cover advances in microfluidics and use Achira's technology as a case-study.  Work from over 6 patents and 7 peer-reviewed publications by Achira team members will be presented.