Magnetic lab-on-chip devices for multiplexed clinical diagnostics

医生和临床医生需要以一种具有成本效益和可靠的方式筛选多种病原体的生物样本，理想情况下是一次检测（多路复用）。快速准确地诊断疾病及其亚型（感染性和自身免疫性疾病、癌症）的能力对于为个体患者提供快速和有针对性的治疗至关重要。趋势是分子测试，避免了人工显微镜诊断培养样本的需要，因为它一直是传统的迄今为止。传统上，这种检测被送到专业实验室，然而，为了简化治疗，许多多重检测最好在护理点（POC）进行。例如，用于心脏标记物的简单POC多路检测在急诊室用于心脏病发作的早期诊断。在测试中添加更多的标记物将使治疗效果更好，但目前的技术在多路复用能力方面受到限制。此外，医生已经对链球菌等传染病进行了简单的检测，以便立即提供治疗并防止进一步传播。对于需要多序列分析的传染病，如流感和耐甲氧西林金黄色葡萄球菌，或者糖尿病，如果它们有更好的多路复用能力，额外的标记可以实现更好的长期护理，它们也可以这样做。剑桥生物磁性公司（CBM）的核心技术通过在全球医疗保健市场提供两种产品来解决这一商业机会。第一种是为医生、护士甚至非专业人员提供具有成本效益、可定制的芯片实验室多路诊断工具。这降低了医疗成本，患者也从减少等待时间和消除误诊中受益。第二个产品为临床实验室提供多种分子诊断，以进行更专业的测试。

There is a need of physicians and clinicians to screen biological samples for many pathogensin a cost effective and reliable way, ideally in a single test (multiplexing). The ability toquickly and accurately diagnose diseases and their many subtypes (infectious andautoimmune diseases, cancer) is crucial to provide rapid and targeted treatment to individualpatients. The trend is towards molecular tests which avoid the need of manual microscopediagnosis of cultured samples as it has been traditionally to date. Conventionally such tests aresent away to specialist laboratories, however many of the multiplexed tests are best performedat the point of care (POC), in order to streamline treatment. Simple POC multiplexed assaysfor cardiac markers, for example, are used in emergency rooms for early diagnosis of heartattacks. The addition of more markers to tests would enable better treatment, but the currenttechnology is limited in multiplexing capabilities. In addition, physicians already run simpletests for infectious diseases such as Streptococcus in order to provide treatment right awayand prevent further spread. They could do the same for infectious diseases that requireanalysis of multiple sequences, such as influenza and MRSA or for diabetes where additionalmarkers could enable better long-term care, if they had better multiplexing capabilities.Cambridge BioMagnetics’s (CBM) core technology addresses this business opportunity withtwo offerings within the global Healthcare market. The first provides cost effective,customisable, lab-on-a-chip multiplex diagnostic tools for POC use by doctors, nurses andeven non-specialised staff. This offers Healthcare cost reduction and the patients benefit fromreduced waiting times and elimination of misdiagnosis. The second offering providesmultiplex molecular diagnostics for clinical labs for more specialised tests.