Abstract

Point-of-Care Molecular Testing and Microfluidic Nucleic Acid Extraction

Richard Spero, CEO, Redbud Labs

Point-of-care molecular tests have a reputation for inferior sensitivity when compared to their laboratory competition. Sample preparation is the single biggest barrier to high-sensitivity molecular testing at point-of-care. In the laboratory, column- and magnetic bead-based workflows are the gold standard. Microfluidic systems, by contrast, have no widely adopted standard for nucleic acid extraction, despite decades of research. We present our work to port the gold-standard nucleic acid extraction workflow using magnetic beads onto microfluidic cartridges.