A low-cost instrument for nucleic acid isolation.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Sample preparation frequently presents a bottleneck for clinical molecular biology workflows. Whereas there are many readout 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 17- 150k, and yet they still do not include an integrated method of lysing difficult-to-disrupt organisms such as gram-positive bacteria or the acid fast bacilli (i.e., Mycobacterium). To address these limitations, we propose to integrate Akonni's sample preparation technologies into a low-cost automated instrument that can process a variety of sample types such as blood, nasopharyngeal swabs, and nasopharyngeal aspirate with a simple-to-use consumable kit. 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 testmethods. 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