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

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

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Micromachines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

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

• Point-of-Care Diagnostic Biosensors in Micromachines (1 article)
• Microsystems for Point-of-Care Testing, Volume II in Micromachines (1 article)
• Emerging and Disruptive Next-Generation Technologies for POC: Sensors, Chemistry and Microfluidics for Diagnostics in Micromachines (6 articles)
• Micro-/Nano-Technology for COVID-19 and Other Infectious Diseases: Diagnosis, Treatment and Prevention in Micromachines (3 articles)