Abstract

A Mobile Healthcare System Based on Smartphone and Smart Lab-on-a-Chip using Microchannel Capillary Flow Assay (MCFA)

Chong Ahn, Professor, University of Cincinnati

A new mobile healthcare system using smartphone and smart lab-on-a-chip for the rapid and high sensitive detection of malaria biomarker, Plasmodium falciparum Histidine Rich Protein 2 (PfHRP2), has been developed and characterized in this work.  Chemiluminescence-based sandwich enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for PfHRP2 as the target antigen was performed on the lab-on-a-chip for high sensitive microchannel-based capillary flow assay (MCFA). A limit of detection (LoD) of 1.2 ng/ml of PfHRP2 was achieved, which is considered enough for the diagnostics of possible malaria infection.  A smartphone based self-powered portable analyzer was also developed for optical detection.   An optical detection system, which can interface with a smartphone, has been developed for the chemiluminescence detection.  The results obtained from this work envisages a new stand-alone mobile healthcare system for the rapid diagnosis of infectious diseases using a smartphone.