Using pinhead-sized swarms of magnets inside a portable, all-in-one lab kit, UCLA researchers have developed a technology that could significantly increase the speed and volume of disease testing, simultaneously which reduce costs and the use of scarce supplies.
Automated tests can be easily manufactured, deployed and performed in a doctor’s office, health clinic or mass testing sites at airports and schools at the onset of any major infectious disease. The UCLA-led research team was motivated by the lack of equitable access to testing during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when only a handful of clinical laboratories were authorized to conduct testing. The technological advance could help authorities better prepare for future pandemics by decentralizing testing and maximizing the use of resources.
Dino Di Carlo, professor of bioengineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, and associate professor of electrical and computer engineering Sam Emaminejad, co-authored a study, which was published this week in Nature. The paper describes how the lab kit works and included findings from a clinical study using test samples from individuals who experienced symptoms of COVID-19. More than 100 test results from the laboratory kit were compared to the same samples tested for COVID-19 using polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based molecular diagnostics performed as part of routine clinical care. ‘UCLA Health.
“Our portable lab technology could help overcome some of the barriers to testing shortages and access, especially early in a pandemic, when it is most crucial to control the spread of the disease,” said Emaminejad , who also holds a position as professor of bioengineering. “And beyond its potential to address problems of short supply and high demand, it could be widely adapted to test many types of diseases in the field and at laboratory quality.”
Using a circuit board that controls a set of 1 millimeter movable magnetic discs known as “ferrobots” to transport samples through the diagnostic workflow of a nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT) , the researchers’ ultra-sensitive laboratory kit was able to detect the presence of genetic material from a virus -; in this case, SARS-CoV-2 which causes COVID-19. The steps to separate, sort, mix and amplify the test samples are automated and performed at a miniaturized level within the kit.
This platform’s compact design and automated sample handling enable simple pooled test implementations where you can test dozens of patient samples at the same time, all with the same materials currently needed to test just one patient. For example, you can test students in an entire university residence with just a few dozen test kits.”
Dino Di Carlo, UCLA’s Armond and Elena Hairapetian Chair in Engineering and Medicine
By designing the kit for pooled testing, the system requires much lower amounts of reagent chemicals than are needed to test samples individually. Up to 16 samples were combined and tested at a time in the team’s study. If the pooled test showed a positive result, subsequent tests would be automatically performed within the same platform until the true positive samples were identified. This whole process took between 30 and 60 minutes, depending on whether there were positive samples. Thanks to the miniaturization of assay technology and joint testing capabilities, chemical reagent costs could be reduced 10- to 300-fold.
In addition to being able to test multiple diseases simultaneously, the platform also offers precision and robust automation. For example, in a joint test with 16 samples, ferrobots automated more than 300 laboratory operations, including mixing and sorting; that is, more than 3,000 individual movements or performances. In their reliability studies, the researchers showed that the ferrobots could perform more than 8 million drives without errors.
In addition to Di Carlo and Emaminejad, who are both faculty members at UCLA’s California NanoSystems Institute, the lead authors of this study are UCLA postdoctoral researcher Haisong Lin and graduate students Wenzhuo Yu and Kiarash Sabet -; all are members of the Emaminejad Interconnected and Integrated Bioelectronics Laboratory at UCLA.
Other authors are UCLA engineering graduate students Michael Bogumil, Jacob Hambalek, and Shuyu Lin; and postdoctoral researcher Yichao Zhao; as well as UCLA Health Assistant Clinical Professor Sukantha Chandrasekaran and Omai Garner Clinical Associate Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.
The research was supported by the WM Keck Foundation’s COVID-19 Research Awards Program, the National Science Foundation, and the NSF Precise Advanced Technologies and Health Systems for Underserved Populations (PATHS-UP) Engineering Research Center . The UCLA Nanoelectronics Research Facility provided access to the fabrication equipment used for the study. Lin, Yu, Sabet, Di Carlo and Emaminejad have filed a patent application through UCLA’s Technology Development Group for the technology used in the new system.
Source:
University of California – Los Angeles
Journal reference:
Lin, H. et al. (2022) Ferrobotic swarms enable accessible and adaptable automated viral testing. Nature. doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05408-3.