Lab-on-a-disc (LOD) has emerged as a promising candidate for a point-of-care testing (POCT) device because it can effectively integrate complex fluid manipulation steps using multiple layers of polymeric substrates. However, it is still highly challenging to design and fabricate temperature measurement and heating system in non-contact with the surface of LOD, which is a prerequisite to successful realization of DNA amplification especially with a rotatable disc. This study presents a Lab-on-a-disc (LOD)-based automatic loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) system, where a thermochromic coating (<~420 µm) was used to distantly measure the chamber’s temperature and a micro graphite film was integrated into the chamber to remotely absorb laser beam with super high efficiency. We used a deep learning network to more consistently analyze the product of LAMP than we could with the naked eye. Consequently, both temperature heating and measurement were carried out without a physical contact with the surface of LOD. The experimental results show that the proposed approach, which no previous work has attempted, was highly effective in realizing LAMP in LOD.
Chemical cell lysis is an interesting topic in the research to Lab-on-a-Disc (LOD) platforms on account of its perfect compatibility with the centrifugal spin column format. However, standard procedures followed in chemical cell lysis require sophisticated non-contact temperature control as well as the use of pressure resistant valves. These requirements pose a significant challenge thereby making the automation of chemical cell lysis on an LOD extremely difficult to achieve. In this study, an LOD capable of performing fully automated chemical cell lysis is proposed, where a combination of chemical and thermal methods has been used. It comprises a sample inlet, phase change material sheet (PCMS)-based temperature sensor, heating chamber, and pressure resistant valves. The PCMS melts and solidifies at a certain temperature and thus is capable of indicating whether the heating chamber has reached a specific temperature. Compared to conventional cell lysis systems, the proposed system offers advantages of reduced manual labor and a compact structure that can be readily integrated onto an LOD. Experiments using Salmonella typhimurium strains were conducted to confirm the performance of the proposed cell lysis system. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed system has great potential in realizing chemical cell lysis on an LOD whilst achieving higher throughput in terms of purity and yield of DNA thereby providing a good alternative to conventional cell lysis systems.
Fast and fully automated deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) amplification methods are of interest in the research on lab-on-a-disc (LOD) platforms because of their full compatibility with the spin-column mechanism using centrifugal force. However, the standard procedures followed in DNA amplification require accurate noncontact temperature control as well as cell lysis at a low temperature to prevent damage to the LOD platform. This requirement makes it challenging to achieve full automation of DNA amplification on an LOD. In this paper, a fully automated LOD capable of performing cell lysis and amplification on a single compact disc of DNA samples is proposed. The proposed system uses micro-carbon to heat DNA samples without damaging the LOD as well as a noncontact heating system and an infrared camera sensor to remotely measure the real temperature of the amplification chamber. Compared with conventional DNA amplification systems, the proposed system has the advantage of full automation of the LOD platform. Experimental results demonstrated that the proposed system offers a stable heating method for DNA amplification and cell lysis.
When grasping objects with uneven or varying shapes, accurate pressure measurement on robot fingers is critical for precise robotic gripping operations. However, measuring the pressure from the sides of the fingertips remains challenging owing to the poor omnidirectionality of the pressure sensor. In this study, we propose an omnidirectional sensitive pressure sensor using a cone-shaped magnet slider and Hall sensor embedded in a flexible elastomer, which guarantees taking pressure measurements from any side of the fingertip. The experimental results indicate that the proposed pressure sensor has a high sensitivity (61.34 mV/kPa) in a wide sensing range (4–90 kPa) without blind spots on the fingertip, which shows promising application prospects in robotics.
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