Microfluid diagnosis

Fast and cheap testing is essential in improving the prognosis of rare diseases. However, current diagnosis methods such as PCR are often slow and require expensive lab equipment with trained personnel, restricting the number of testing sites to communities near well equipped labs. Microfluid diagnosis offers cheap, fast and portable testing and tracking of a variety of enteric diseases using microfluidic technology. If scaled, Microfluid diagnosis would offer testing for rare enteric diseases in communities that would normally struggle to find access to reliable testing. Microfluid diagnosis would also offer health professionals and governments the opportunity to track the spread of enteric diseases with an accuracy never seen before.

PCR is slow and requires expensive equipment making point of care diagnosis close to impossible. PCR is commonly used to detect enteric diseases such as Malaria and Covid-19. However, it is inefficient because it is both sometimes inaccurate and expensive to produce and use. Our solutions addresses both problems, by being more accurate and less expensive, letting more people access it. Developing countries being unable to afford equipment is widespread, and often leaves their citizens disproportionately struggling as compared to wealthier countries. They're unable to test whether they have the virus, leading it to spread more rapidly. This is because those who are sick are unable to know if they are sick, so even if they are they will continue going to school or work and therefore spreading the virus. 1.3 billion people are affected by the fact that their government is unable to afford expensive medical equipment, and microfluidic chips offer a solution. 

Our microfluidic chip contains primers that bind to specific DNA or RNA strands that can be found in bacteria and viruses. When a primer binds to viral DNA it fluoresces indicating a positive test.

Our solution serves those who do not have access to testing sites or are in underdeveloped countries without the money and resources necessary to guarantee tests. Microfluid chips would be so much cheaper to manufacture than the current equipment used to test for diseases. This will help people in third world countries, who don't have the finances to buy millions of expensive testing kits. By using microfluid chips, we help provide these people who have less privilege with more tests and accuracy, saving millions of lives. It is not fair for someone to have a higher chance of dying of a virus because their country can't provide them with the right resources. To help them, we'll give their country more testing kits for less money, so everyone is able to stay healthy, regardless of their monetary status. These people are often ignored in global pandemics such as Covid-19, as seen by the situation in India, so cheaper and more accurate testing kits will help save these people.

Event though we often want to say that everyone is equal, it is completely un true, and it would be wrong to not address that. Money is a huge part of anything, and our solution addresses that need and promotes a healthier world, helping people regardless of their financial status. 

Rare diseases affect everyone all over the world, and especially those in developing countries. They are some of the people most vulnerable to enteric diseases and health security threats, and a crashing economy. Our solution will give these people a chance to detect and respond to an emerging pandemic. Microfluid chips are cheap to produce, so they're feasible for countries who do not have a lot of money. They will also allow people to faster detect the virus, allowing more time to treat it while it's still weak. This will help save millions of people from health threats and emerging pandemics.

We are currently building and testing the website and building the microfluidic chip. There are 4 people in total on our team, 2 of which are the main contributors to making a microfluidic chip. With one member being the main contributor to the business model and the prototype website and the last member a contributor the proposal and solutions. 

Our solution is innovative because it uses technology that is both cheaper and more accessible. PCR is expensive and not very accurate, leading to misdiagnosis and slow testing rates. This gives the virus more time to grow in the cells, making it harder to treat. Microfluidic chips can change the market. Governments are constantly looking for cheaper ways to diagnose sicknesses, and this solution offers a cheaper way. It uses new technology that has more accuracy and is more inexpensive than PCR, making it appealing to both citizens, hospitals, and governments. 

The core technology of our solution is microfluidics. Microfluidics is used to control the flow of fluids using tiny valves. Microfluidics is commonly used in DNA analysis and mass spectroscopy.

"An example of a microfluidic detector using antibodies against viral proteins was described by Wang et al. They developed a device capable of recognizing two subtypes of Influenza A (Inf.-A) simultaneously, based on antibodies immobilized on magnetic beads . Antibodies anti-H7 and anti-H9 were used to detect H7N9 and H9N2 Inf.-A subtype viral proteins in concentrations as low as 3.4 and 4.5 ng ml−1, respectively. Microfluidic devices can also use aptamers3 to screen for viruses." 

Sourced from: https://royalsocietypublishing...

"The adaptability of fluorescence methods to smartphones has been helping in the detection of viruses such as H7N9 avian influenza and H1N1 [87,107]. Shi et al. [107] developed a microfluidic device for the detection of the genomic DNA of H7N9 avian influenza. Their system consists of a device for amplification of the target DNA, a bluish light-emitting diode and a narrowband filter. A smartphone can be attached to record the fluorescent signals generated by different dyes (EvaGreen, SYBR Green and FAM fluorescent probe) in real-time [107]."

Sourced from: https://royalsocietypublishing...

For our isothermal amplification on chip: our parts of chip include 

• Temperature sensor and heater( if needed)

• Amplifying Channel

• Primers are in the amplification channel and fluoresce if positive.

• Fluorescence detection device(smart phone).

Our microfluidic chip and smartphone/web application introduces the risk of privacy concerns for households. Such as households may not feel comfortable to share their positive test case results with hospitals or government officials. My team and I hope to address the privacy concern by allowing the user to have the option to share their test results with databases or keeping results confidential to themselves. My team and I will adhere to Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA).

Currently, we are based in the US, and our solution serves those who are in poverty/are low to middle income, so around 3 million people. In one year, hopefully it will be able to serve more people world wide, so 10 million people. And then in 5 years, after it has become more widespread, perhaps we will be able to help 50 million people.

In one year, our goal is to help the majority of low income people in the Us. In the next five years, our goal is to help everyone in poverty world wide, so 150 million people. To achieve this goal, we will first start in the US, introducing it to local states, and then the CDC. Once we have introduced it to our own country and helped all the low income people, we will then offer our microfluidic chips to close by countries, such as Canada and Mexico. We will provide support to their low income population. Finally, after manufacturing as become more widespread and well known, we will go to developing countries who need it the most, and give them microfluidic chips either for free or at a very low price. Other health organizations, such as the WHO, will recognize our solution and aid us in manufacturing it. This will supply it to more people, and ultimately we can 150 million citizens with our microfluidic chip, helping accurately diagnose them.

We will track it by how many chips we produce and give to these countries. Every country has a low income population, and we will supply all these families with chips, by manufacturing the correct amount. 

There are 4 people in our team, all full-time contributors. 

Myself and another team member are working on developing the design for the microfluidic chip, which is essential to creating the solution. 

One of my team member has background in website development and prototyping. With these skills it allows us to develop a prototype model website and business model to scale the economic branch of our project. 

The last team member is working on the proposal and solutions part of the project. 

Our approach to building an equitable and inclusive team leadership - is all the team members come from different backgrounds and hold distinct levels of experiences. The team members also encompass different regions of the U.S. For instance the team is broken into Connecticut, New York, North Carolina, and California.  

My team and I are applying to the Horizon Prize to gain access to laboratory equipment, and receive mentoring from professionals in the field. With the help of funding of we hope to release a feasible manufacture of our microfluidic chip. We expect to have 200 units of chips with the $10,000 and gain access to legal services in order to distribute the chips in research labs and hospitals. If my team and I are selected as solvers, we look forward to developing a website to go in hand with our microfluidic chip -such that the website will be able to prompt the user for their zip code, display the population of others affected in their area, and provide users a list of location sites where they can receive affordable and instant testing. After the publishing of the website and the production of our microfluidic chip, we hope to see growth in our product by reaching an international scale, such as countries as South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Burundi. In the future we expect to also have a developed app that will allow households to directly access testing from home - by the observance of fluorescence, this will be recorded by any smartphone. If the sample glows, users will know their testing is positive. 

My team and I could use support with human capital to help facilitate different techniques we can use in the production of our microfluidic chip. Such as using the method of continuous aerosol size separator using inertial microfluidics and its application to airborne bacteria and viruses and/or soft inertial microfluidics for high throughput separation of bacteria from human blood cells. We could also use support to figure how PCR works in microfluidic chips. My team and I need support with legal services to determine the eligibility requirements of our product and to ensure our microfluidic chips is reaching our target audience of low-income households, and households who traditionally don't have access to infectious disease testing.  We could also use support in product distribution, so we can reach a larger scale of individuals - we believe solve can help us reach many hospitals and research facilities. Finally, my team and I could also use support with data analysis and tracking the correlation between positive test cases in relation to specific regions without causing any privacy issues for households.

Potential organizations my team and I would benefit from partnership is - the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and possibly World Health Organization (WHO). With the help from the CDC, they can track spread of diseases in areas where there are positive test cases, and help increase health security.  With the help of WHO, we will be able to target universal health and work to distribute our chips with WHO's regions partnerships including Africa and Southeast Asia.