A low-cost instrument for nucleic acid isolation.

DESCRIPTION provided by applicant Sample preparation frequently presents a bottleneck for clinical molecular biology workflows and diagnostic tests Whereas there are many molecular detection modalities there are only a handful of automated sample preparation workflow strategies Existing instruments that are built around these sample preparation strategies and chemistries range in cost from $ $ k and yet they still do not include an integrated method for lysing difficult to disrupt organisms such as gram positive bacteria or the acid fast bacilli e Mycobacterium To address these limitations we will integrate Akonniandapos s sample preparation technologies into a low cost automated instrument that can process a variety of sample types with simple to use consumable kits Based on Phase results the two year goal for Phase is to demonstrate the efficacy of pre production integrated sample preparation systems with a disposable M tuberculosis sputum DNA extraction kit in a targeted intended use setting a clinic with a moderate to high TB burden rate PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE Molecular diagnostics which are tests that analyze the DNA and or RNA in a sample are becoming increasingly prevalent among clinical laboratory test methods An important yet challenging procedure required of these tests is to remove the DNA RNA from the sample and wash away the impurities We seek to develop a low cost automated instrument to address this challenge