The recent Ebola crisis in West Africa highlights challenges associated with pathogen diagnostics in the developing world. Patient samples, which are perishable yet potentially highly infectious must be transported long distances through difficult or impassable terrain to one of a small number of well-equipped diagnostic laboratories where well-trained technicians process samples using conventional quantitative realtime PCR instrumentation. Although the qRT-PCR technique is well-validated, the turnaround time from sample collection to answer can be many hours, or even days-time that is critical for decisions about patient care, patient isolation, public health decisions, and infection control measures. Point-of-care assays offer an alternative approach, with potentially a great reduction in turnaround time, and corresponding benefits to patient care and infection control. We present here several innovations that will help enable the next generation of portable diagnostic devices.
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