Lab-on-a-Chip and Point-of-Care Testing: Product Design and Development

Learning Outcomes

Point of Care (POC) testing is defined as medical diagnostic testing at or near the patient. Now, rapid testing has increasingly become part of the effort to slow the spread of COVID-19. Microfluidic Lab-on-a-Chip technologies offer three main advantages to POCT diagnostics: smaller sample volumes, lower test costs, and faster turn-around times. These advantages are increasingly being leveraged to develop POCT devices to detect and diagnose a host of conditions, spanning from infectious diseases to cancer. This course module is designed for and targeted at engineers or PMETs who are interested in the knowledge and skills of product development of Point-of-Care Testing (POCT). Covering the knowledge and skills for immune-sensing and optical detection, molecular diagnostics and cellular analysis in the application of miniaturized medical diagnostics, as well as the practical methods about developing new POCT products, which are mostly medical instrument and cartridges or cassettes. Knowledge and skills about building up the quality management system in medical product development will be covered as well. The programme employs the Learn-Practise-Implement™ (LPI™) pedagogy, where fundamental knowledge and principles taught will be reinforced with hands-on practices. - Lab-on-a-Chip and microfluidics - Point-of-Care Test (POCT) Diagnosis - Immunoassay and biosensing - Molecular Diagnosis: Automated nuclei acid test - Optical imaging and spectroscopy in POCT - Tissue culture and Organ-on-a-Chip - Fluorescence microscopy and spectroscopy - Turn laboratory protocol into miniaturized POCT product Participants will understand the concepts and applications of POCT technology, learn the method and process of New Product Development (NDP) for medical diagnostics instrument and devices. With the guidance of the experts in POCT product development, participants will get hands-on experience in design and prototyping of biosensors, practicing the experiments on molecular diagnosis and cellular analysis, and practice the product development process of medical diagnostic instrument. Participants will also gain the up-to-date knowledge about how to turn a laboratory protocol of body fluid analysis into a miniaturized POCT instrument and cartridge based on microfluidics Lab-on-a-Chip (LOC) strategy. Through this training course, the participant will gain and master the knowledge and skills of the miniaturized medical diagnostic instrument and device in a holistic /integrated manner.