Integrated, self-actuated, blood collection and biomarker purification device

Blood-based assays require upstream mechanisms to acquire sample from a patient, extract the analyte of interest, and preserve the analyte until it can be quantified. Current point-of-care assays overwhelmingly rely on lancet puncture, which is inconvenient because of the presence of blood that is open to the environment and induces high levels of user error inherent with the multiple steps required. In order to develop a platform that can be used in any situation (i.e. low resource setting, moving vehicle) and by an untrained user, we propose the development of a blood collection and sample purification platform integrated in a simple device that does not require complex fluid transfer steps. The technology proposed will allow accessible blood collection and high-purity extraction from the sample collected of a broad range of biomarkers such as viral particles, protein, RNA and DNA for downstream quantification and analysis. The disposable testing platform can be readily interfaced with components for in-the-field testing, or used for stabilizing the biomarkers of interest for safely shipping to a remote laboratory for analysis.