Research and Development of Point-of-Care Technologies for and after COVID-19

A special issue of Micromachines (ISSN 2072-666X). This special issue belongs to the section "B:Biology and Biomedicine".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2022) | Viewed by 10167

Special Issue Editors

The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
Interests: point-of-care testing; photonic PCR; digital detection
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Suzhou DiYinAn Biotech Co., Ltd. & Suzhou Innovation Centre for Life Science & Technology, Suzhou 215129, China
Interests: point-of-care diagnostics; microfluidics & nanotechnology; sensors & actuators; molecular diagnostics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The ongoing outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become pandemic and is still seriously threatening global health. The COVID-19 pandemic has not only made a profound impact on public lives but also posed critical challenges for research, industry, and medical communities about the research and development of point-of-care (POC) technologies.  Meanwhile, in the past one year, POC technologies have obtained an unprecedented development. For example, the USA Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently authorized first COVID-19 self-testing at home. Before COVID-19, commonly-used diagnostic techniques usually require complex infrastructure, trained personnel, long turnaround, and expensive reagents. However, mostly elements are unavailable in resource-limited settings and are even lacking in well-developed regions when facing to unprecedented numbers of demands, e.g., for the control and prevention of COVID-19. Point-of-care (POC) diagnostic technologies can simplify the healthcare processes, improve clinical decision-making. The main advantages of POC technologies rely on their cost/time efficiency, portability, sensitivity/specificity, and user-friendliness. These characteristics enable the use of POC systems on site (e.g., home, airport, railway station, primary hospital), which is the most important step for pandemic control. Apart of screening and testing, POC technologies also may play an important role in the prognosis and recovery of COVID-19 patients. This Special Issue thus seeks to showcase research papers, review articles that focus on: the diagnosis, prognosis, and recovery of COVID-19 based on POC technologies.

We look forward to receiving your submissions.

Dr. Minli You
Dr. Jie Hu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • Point-of-care technology
  • Microfluidic chip
  • Biosensors
  • COVID-19

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Review

18 pages, 2072 KiB  
Review
Application of Microfluidic Chips in the Detection of Airborne Microorganisms
by Jinpei Wang, Lixia Yang, Hanghui Wang and Lin Wang
Micromachines 2022, 13(10), 1576; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi13101576 - 22 Sep 2022
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 3753
Abstract
The spread of microorganisms in the air, especially pathogenic microorganisms, seriously affects people’s normal life. Therefore, the analysis and detection of airborne microorganisms is of great importance in environmental detection, disease prevention and biosafety. As an emerging technology with the advantages of integration, [...] Read more.
The spread of microorganisms in the air, especially pathogenic microorganisms, seriously affects people’s normal life. Therefore, the analysis and detection of airborne microorganisms is of great importance in environmental detection, disease prevention and biosafety. As an emerging technology with the advantages of integration, miniaturization and high efficiency, microfluidic chips are widely used in the detection of microorganisms in the environment, bringing development vitality to the detection of airborne microorganisms, and they have become a research highlight in the prevention and control of infectious diseases. Microfluidic chips can be used for the detection and analysis of bacteria, viruses and fungi in the air, mainly for the detection of Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, H1N1 virus, SARS-CoV-2 virus, Aspergillus niger, etc. The high sensitivity has great potential in practical detection. Here, we summarize the advances in the collection and detection of airborne microorganisms by microfluidic chips. The challenges and trends for the detection of airborne microorganisms by microfluidic chips was also discussed. These will support the role of microfluidic chips in the prevention and control of air pollution and major outbreaks. Full article
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19 pages, 2760 KiB  
Review
Methods of Respiratory Virus Detection: Advances towards Point-of-Care for Early Intervention
by Siming Lu, Sha Lin, Hongrui Zhang, Liguo Liang and Shien Shen
Micromachines 2021, 12(6), 697; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi12060697 - 15 Jun 2021
Cited by 20 | Viewed by 5555
Abstract
Respiratory viral infections threaten human life and inflict an enormous healthcare burden worldwide. Frequent monitoring of viral antibodies and viral load can effectively help to control the spread of the virus and make timely interventions. However, current methods for detecting viral load require [...] Read more.
Respiratory viral infections threaten human life and inflict an enormous healthcare burden worldwide. Frequent monitoring of viral antibodies and viral load can effectively help to control the spread of the virus and make timely interventions. However, current methods for detecting viral load require dedicated personnel and are time-consuming. Additionally, COVID-19 detection is generally relied on an automated PCR analyzer, which is highly instrument-dependent and expensive. As such, emerging technologies in the development of respiratory viral load assays for point-of-care (POC) testing are urgently needed for viral screening. Recent advances in loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), biosensors, nanotechnology-based paper strips and microfluidics offer new strategies to develop a rapid, low-cost, and user-friendly respiratory viral monitoring platform. In this review, we summarized the traditional methods in respiratory virus detection and present the state-of-art technologies in the monitoring of respiratory virus at POC. Full article
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