Diagnostics Suite

The Diagnostics Suite

The Diagnostics Suite houses top-of-the-line cyclers, gel electrophoresis equipment, contact and non-contact micro-arrayers and lateral flow dispensers, and other equpiment for the development of “lab-on-a-chip” and “point-of-care” diagnostics.

Equipment supports finding and purifying targets, characterizing binding efficiencies, developing prototypes, and supporting device scale up.

Current research explores the use of aptamer sequences (e.g. DNAzymes) that bind unique biological molecules from various targets (e.g. bacteria, cancer cells, small metabolites, and protein biomarkers) for selective detection in vitro. The technology is capable of detecting low concentrations when coupled with amplification (e.g. RCA). Aptamers can modified and be printed on paper substrates for fluorescence and/or lateral flow assays, for rapid, easy-to-read diagnosis of a target being present within patient samples (e.g. blood, serum, saliva, mucus, sputum, urine, and faeces).