Smartphone clip-on instrument and microfluidic processor for rapid sample-to-answer detection of Zika virus in whole blood using spatial RT-LAMP.

Rapid, simple, inexpensive, accurate, and sensitive point-of-care (POC) detection of viral pathogens in bodily fluids is a vital component of controlling the spread of infectious diseases. The predominant laboratory-based methods for sample processing and nucleic acid detection face limitations that prevent them from gaining wide adoption for POC applications in low-resource settings and self-testing scenarios. Here, we report the design and characterization of an integrated system for rapid sample-to-answer detection of a viral pathogen in a droplet of whole blood comprised of a 2-stage microfluidic cartridge for sample processing and nucleic acid amplification, and a clip-on detection instrument that interfaces with the image sensor of a smartphone.

A portable pen-sized instrumentation to measure stiffness of soft tissues in vivo.

Quantitative assessment of soft tissue elasticity is crucial to a broad range of applications, such as biomechanical modeling, physiological monitoring, and tissue diseases diagnosing. However, the modulus measurement of soft tissues, particularly in vivo, has proved challenging since the instrument has to reach the site of soft tissue and be able to measure in a very short time. Here, we present a simple method to measure the elastic modulus of soft tissues on site by exploiting buckling of a long slender bar to quantify the applied force and a spherical indentation to extract the elastic modulus.