Modular micro-PCR system for the onsite rapid diagnosis of COVID-19

This article reports on Epidax®, a cost-effective modular microfluidic platform for point-of-care COVID-19 testing. Epidax® performs reverse transcription (RT)-PCR and RT-loop mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP), adaptable for screening (endpoint RT-PCR or RT-LAMP) or confirmatory tests (real-time RT-PCR). Highly sensitive, it detects as little as 1 RNA copy/µL and uses half the reagents of commercial systems. Comparable results to a commercial platform were obtained with 81 clinical RNA extracts. Direct RT-PCR on 44 nasopharyngeal samples (no RNA extraction) yielded results within an hour. RT-LAMP validation on 54 clinical RNA extracts further demonstrated the platform's sensitivity and cost-effectiveness for low-resource settings.

Phuong Quoc Mai Nguyen, Ming Wang, Nelisha Ann Maria, Adelicía Yongling Li, Hsih Yin Tan, Gordon Minru Xiong, Meng-Kwang Marcus Tan, Ali Asgar S. Bhagat, Catherine W. M. Ong, Chew Teeck Lim