On July 15th, Dr. Weihua Guan from The Pennsylvania State University visited BEBC and gave a talk entitled "Mobile Molecular Diagnostics at the Point-of-Care: Towards Personalized Medicine". 

Dr. Guan’s research interests lie in the fundamental and translational understanding and application of microelectronic, optic, and microfluidictechnologies in lab-on-a-chip devices for medical diagnostics and life sciences. Dr. Guan received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Yale University in 2013. He is a member of IEEE and American Physics Society. Among other honors, Dr. Guan is a recipient of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute International Research Fellowship and Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-financed Students Abroad.

Report Introduction:

A standalone, mobile genetic testing instrument and microfluidic-chip-based reagent cartridge for malaria infectious disease diagnosis will be presented. The battery-powered instrument incorporates ‘sample-in-answer-out’ features, alleviating the biggest challenge for high quality nucleic acid sample preparation on the chip. This paradigm-shifting molecular diagnostic system integrates advanced microelectronic, microfluidic, optic and MEMS components in a seamless way and enables the application of the state-of-the-art molecular diagnosis towards general public at an affordable cost. The open and versatile platform can be widely disseminated to situations that demand portability, connectivity and ease-of-use, ranging from resource-limited field to a neighborhood clinic.