Magnetic lab-on-chip devices for multiplexed clinical diagnostics

医生和临床医生需要以经济有效和可靠的方式筛选生物样本中的许多病原体，理想情况下是在一次测试(多路复用)中。快速和准确地诊断疾病及其许多亚型(传染病和自身免疫性疾病、癌症)的能力对于为个别患者提供快速和有针对性的治疗至关重要。分子检测的趋势是避免人工显微镜诊断培养样本的需要，因为这一直是传统的做法。传统上，这类测试通常被送往专业实验室，然而，许多多路测试最好在护理点(POC)进行，以便简化治疗。例如，心脏标志物的简单POC多路分析在急诊室用于心脏病发作的早期诊断。在测试中增加更多的标记可以实现更好的处理，但目前的技术在多路复用能力方面是有限的。此外，医生们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。他们可以对需要分析多个序列的传染病做同样的事情，例如流感和MRSA，或者糖尿病，在这些疾病中，如果具有更好的多路复用能力，额外的标志物可以实现更好的长期护理。剑桥生物磁学(CBM)的核心技术通过全球医疗市场的两种产品解决了这一商业机会。第一个提供经济高效、可定制的芯片实验室多路诊断工具，供医生、护士甚至非专业人员使用POC。这降低了医疗保健成本，患者从减少等待时间和消除误诊中受益。第二个服务为临床实验室提供多重分子诊断，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.