Portable Pathogen Detection On Mobile Devices

There is an increasing interest in molecular diagnostics that can be used at the point-of-care (POC) for quick, low-cost, and highly sensitive disease detection. A suitable platform needs to possess both novel hardware (sensing chip) and software (result reporting or remote control) components. In a first effort aimed at the hardware components, we investigated the optical loss for solid-core Anti-Resonant Reflecting Optical Waveguides (ARROWs) at the heart of a planar optofluidic chip (combining optics and fluids at single cell dimensions) for sensitive POC pathogen detection. Two solid-core ARROW chips were tested with silicon nitride (SiN) layers grown at different temperatures (150-200˚C) and waveguide widths (9-15μm). The measurements revealed a 24% higher optical transmission with the 200˚C chip, making this more suitable for low-power fluorescence detection. In a second effort addressing the software aspects, two mobile applications were created for the popular Google Android and Apple iOS operating systems, which brought real-time data reporting of virus detection outcomes from the optofluidic chip. Lab technicians and physicians can remotely control or view the results of a virus diagnostics test that are performed in a lab or the patients’ homes. These two mobile applications completed an integrated system of hardware and software to promote a low-cost POC pathogen detection instrument for physicians.