Abstract

Origami Paper Folding Enabling DNA Diagnostics in Under-served Rural Communities East Africa

Jonathan Cooper, Wolfson Professor and University Vice Principal, Glasgow University

We have devised an origami-inspired paper device as a low-cost, rapid, and easy-to-use field test to help combat the spread of infectious diseases, like malaria. Although healthcare workers utilize various accepted methods, many standard tests have proven unreliable and impracticable, especially in remote, rural communities that lack refrigeration and laboratory equipment. To address the growing need for better tests, we have developed a paper, origami-inspired field device that provides fast, high-quality, species-specific malaria diagnostics that compare favorably to PCR laboratory assays, the current gold standard. Requiring just a wax printer and hot plate, the design draws on origami folding techniques to create a paper device which prepares blood samples for a field-friendly amplification technique known as loop-mediated isothermal amplification, or LAMP. The device is further augmented with microfluidic lateral flow LAMP amplification and a simple detection platform that can diagnose malaria species from a finger-prick blood sample. As a demonstration, we present a double-blind, first-in-human trial with rural primary schools in Mayuge and Apac Districts in Uganda that show the device outperforms other established techniques, detecting malaria in 98% of infected participants. Finally we also show that the techniques can be used in a variety of environmental and veterinary applications, with sampling from faeces, sperm and water in studies in India and China.