A Portable, Self-Contained Nucleic Acid Extraction and Storage System for POC Tes

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This SBIR Phase I proposal aims to develop and commercialize a portable, easy-to-use system for nucleic acid preparation for effective molecular diagnostics in low-resource settings (LRS). The technology will also aid in the monitoring of treatment response for patients of global diseases such as AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. Because a reliable and reproducible high-quality sample preparation process for NA is critical to the success of most molecular diagnostic assays and the subsequent treatment and monitoring of recovery progress, the availability of an effective sample preparation technology is especially important if the tests are performed in non-traditional or low-resource health care settings. Most processes incurrent commercial sample preparation methods are labor intensive and require special instrumentation. Although commercially available automated systems can perform extensive sample processing, they are expensive for use in non-central laboratory set