I2I Phase I: A Portable Blood Group Typing Analyzer

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Hemorrhage is the third leading cause of death among trauma patients. A transfusion is needed to replenish the patient's lost blood; however, prior to transfusion, physicians must determine the patient's blood type to administer blood from a compatible donor. In high stakes environments such as a trauma setting every second is critical and therefore doctors are in need for fast and reliable methods to monitor the hemorrhaging patient. Currently, hospitals rely on large batch processing systems, dedicated to each test or subset of tests (e.g. blood-grouping and hematological tests), which introduce large delays between the sample collection and the results' release. While physicians wait for these results, they must use universal blood products that are in short supply. To address this issue, the microfluidics community has developed point-of-care tests, but those that have made it to market have not been adopted because of errors caused by manual processing and analysis "by eye." This proposal aims to prove the concept of an autonomous, low-cost blood analyzer, used to provide healthcare professionals with access to real time and reliable results. The solution described here is based on an advanced liquid handling technology, called digital microfluidics (DMF), which uses an array of electrodes to manipulate discrete droplets. DMF enables complete automation of blood group testing, with results that are in 100% concordance with the gold standard method. The results are available in 6 minutes from a shoebox sized, battery-powered instrument that can be operated at the point of care. This I2I Phase 1 grant will allow us to explore options to bring the cost of consumable cartridges down to competitive levels, as a step toward commercialization. We envision that this platform will become an essential medical monitoring device for physicians that seek fast and reliable blood analyses at the point of care, helping them provide best-in-class care for Canadians and others around the world.