Rapid quantitative assays for glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) and hemoglobin combined on a capillary-driven microfluidic chip.

Rapid tests for glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) are extremely important for determining G6PD deficiency, a widespread metabolic disorder which triggers hemolytic anemia in response to primaquine and tafenoquine medication, the most effective drugs for the radical cure of malaria caused by parasites. Current point-of-care diagnostic devices for G6PD are either qualitative, do not normalize G6PD activity to the hemoglobin concentration, or are very expensive. In this work we developed a capillary-driven microfluidic chip to perform a quantitative G6PD test and a hemoglobin measurement within 2 minutes and using less than 2 μL of sample.

Self-coalescing flows in microfluidics for pulse-shaped delivery of reagents.

Microfluidic systems can deliver portable point-of-care diagnostics without the need for external equipment or specialist operators, by integrating all reagents and manipulations required for a particular assay in one device. A key approach is to deposit picogram quantities of dried reagents in microchannels with micrometre precision using specialized inkjet plotters. This means that reagents can be stored for long periods of time and reconstituted spontaneously when adding a liquid sample.