Accelerated development of a cost-efficient microPCR (miPCR) and lateral flow diagnostic (LFD) system to enable expanded near-point-of-care testing for COVID-19

To address the bottleneck in COVID-19 testing, the AMPLiFieD System project aims to provide a functional alternative to commercial qPCR instruments at a significantly lower cost and a much smaller size. The system can also create more cost-effective, distributed testing laboratories and provide the much-needed testing infrastructure for more responsive testing and tracing of suspected COVID-19 cases. Also called "proof-of-principle", this is an important feat, as it shifts decisions for continuing or stopping development of new innovations. The system is already halfway through completion at the end of 2020, as further refinements of the hardware and software are still in progress. Developed by a multidisciplinary team of biologists, clinicians, and engineers led by Dr. Jeremie de Guzman, Dr. Keith Moore, and Mr. Ricardo Jose S. Guerrero, PhD and from the Ateneo Research Institute for Science and Engineering (ARISE), the system combines the outputs of two newly-initiated DOST-PCHRD supported projects -- the miPCR Project, a microfluidic PCR device for portable DNA/RNA amplification and the ADDS Project, an amplified DNA detection system based on low-cost lateral flow diagnostic (LFD) strips to selectively detect the viral nucleic acids that are the output of the miPCR device.