Microfluidic chip fabrication and method to detect influenza

Fast and effective diagnostics play an important role in controlling infectious disease by enabling effective patient management and treatment. Here, we present an integrated microfluidic thermoplastic chip with the ability to amplify influenza A virus in patient nasopharyngeal (NP) swabs and aspirates. Upon loading the patient sample, the microfluidic device sequentially carries out on-chip cell lysis, RNA purification and concentration steps within the solid phase extraction (SPE), reverse transcription (RT) and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in RT-PCR chambers, respectively. End-point detection is performed using an off-chip Bioanalyzer (Agilent Technologies, Santa Clara, CA). For peripherals, we used a single syringe pump to drive reagent and samples, while two thin film heaters were used as the heat sources for the RT and PCR chambers. The chip is designed to be single layer and suitable for high throughput manufacturing to reduce the fabrication time and cost. The microfluidic chip provides a platform to analyze a wide variety of virus and bacteria, limited only by changes in reagent design needed to detect new pathogens of interest.