Conventional blood analysis requires 0.5 to 2.5 mL per test, and several days of testing can lead to blood loss exceeding the circulating blood volume in ELBW newborns. For instance, newborns with iatrogenic anemia have an average total blood volume of 240 mL and can be as low as 60 mL in extremely low birth weight (ELBW) newborns.
In addition to cost savings, miniaturized diagnostic assays with low sample requirements are advantageous in situations where the extraction of a large quantity of patients’ samples could be detrimental to patients’ health. Thereby, this has resulted in dramatic savings for repetitive tests that are performed in clinical diagnostic laboratories. While conventional diagnostic assays usually require milliliters or hundreds of microliters of reagents, reagent consumptions are lowered by a factor of 10 3–10 4 for miniaturized diagnostic assays. The downsizing of these analytical methods has tremendously benefitted from the low sample volume requirement, improved sensitivity and selectivity of microsensors, reduced turnover times, enabled parallel analyses and batch manufacturing processes. The need for automated, high throughput, and reduced cost biochemical analytical techniques has driven the miniaturization of many conventional assays. By combining our low-cost, inkjet-printed EWOD-DMF platform with smartphone imaging technology and a compact control system for droplet manipulation, we also demonstrate a portable and hand-held device which can be programmed to potentially perform a variety of biochemical assays. We demonstrate the utility of our platform to move and mix droplets of different reagents and physiologically conductive buffers, thereby showing its capability to potentially perform a variety of biochemical assays. To address this challenge, we present a low-cost and simple fabrication procedure for EWOD-DMF electrode arrays, which can be performed anywhere with a commercial office inkjet printer without the need of expensive cleanroom facilities. This makes the fabrication of EWOD-DMF platforms extremely challenging in low-income countries, where such platforms are most needed for many applications such as point-of-care testing applications. However, such high-end microfabrication facilities are extremely challenging to establish in resource-poor and low-income countries, due to their high capital investment and operating costs.
Conventionally, EWOD-DMF platforms are manufactured in cleanrooms by expert technicians using costly and time consuming micro-nanofabrication processes such as optical lithography, depositions and etching. Electrowetting on dielectric-based digital microfluidic platforms (EWOD-DMF) have a potential to impact point-of-care diagnostics.
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