A Portable Microfluidic Paper-Based Device for Performing ELISA

Abstract

Standard diagnostic tests for the detection of diseases typically cannot be performed in low-resource settings because they require equipment and conditions found in a laboratory. To address this problem, rapid test devices that can be operated outside of the laboratory have been created. The devices integrate complex assays into miniature devices with simple user interfaces allowing them to be used by unskilled workers. However, current devices are limited to one-step assays due to their design. The advantage of an assay with more than one step, a multi-step assay, is that the signal of the results can be amplified, making the device more sensitive. In this paper, I discuss the creation of a microfluidic paper-based device for performing the multi-step enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). In order to determine the functionality of the device, we needed a target disease, and chose to use syphilis because of the vast amount of literature that exists for syphilis rapid test devices and syphilis detection methods. By creating a rapid test device that is able to perform a multi-step assay such as the ELISA, point-of-care diagnoses will be more robust as the ELISA is proven to be more sensitive and specific than the assays currently used in rapid test devices.