Abstract

Point-of-Care Diagnostics 2.0

Emmanuel Delamarche, Manager, Precision Diagnostics, IBM Research GmbH

Diagnostics are ubiquitous in healthcare because they support prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases. Specifically, point-of-care diagnostics are particularly attractive for identifying diseases near patients, quickly, and in many settings and scenarios. One of our contribution to the field of microfluidics is the development of capillary-driven microfluidic chips for highly miniaturized immunoassays. In this presentation, I will review how to program capillary flow and encode specific functions to form microfluidic elements that can easily be assembled into self-powered devices for immunoassays, reaching unprecedented levels of precision for manipulating samples and reagents. This technology can also be augmented using peripherals and smartphones for flow control and monitoring with sub-nanoliter precision. Is the next generation of point-of-care devices finally coming?