Facility for the rapid prototyping and characterization of point-of-care diagnostic systems

血液检测是临床实验室的常规工作，用于检测疾病、监测治疗方案和筛查。用于血细胞测量和血清测试的许多现有技术基于光学，例如流式细胞术、荧光成像和拉曼光谱。通常，此类仪器价格昂贵;需要专门的实验室基础设施和技术支持。为了更好地满足低收入国家和加拿大偏远社区的医疗保健需求，有必要开发低成本的仪器，这些仪器可以部署在实地，并由受过最低限度培训的人操作。这种即时护理设备也可应用于每个急诊室的分诊、灾后场景和对抗全球感染。

Blood testing is routinely done in clinical labs for the detection of diseases, monitoring treatment regimes and screening. Many existing technologies for blood cell measurements and serum testing are based on optics, for example flow cytometry, fluorescent imaging, and Raman spectroscopy. Typically such instruments are expensive; require dedicated lab infrastructure and technical support. In order to better serve the health care needs of low income countries, and remote communities in Canada there is a need to develop low-cost instruments, which can be deployed in the field and operated by someone with a minimum amount of training. Such point-of-care devices also have applications in per-emergency room triage, post disaster scenarios and in combating global infections.