Team:Worldshaper-Shanghai/AppliedDesign

Applied Design

For application, a portable kit could be a popular product for public. We called it “Easy (blood) uric-acid monitoring kit”. Two strategies were shown as following:

Test Paper Kit Design

The Test Paper Kit will use positively charged cellulose acetate membrane as the material of the test paper. The kit contains 4 parts（Figure 1):

  • Capillary Blood Collecting Tubes
  • Sterile bag
  • Paperfuge[1] ( Based on the novel inovation from M. Saad Bhamla, et al.,Stanford University )
  • Test paper (cellulose acetate membrane)
  • Portable Device
  • USB & charger
  • Analytic app
Figure 1 Design of Test Paper Kit
Figure 1 Design of Test Paper Kit
  1. Extract patient's blood by using Capillary Blood Collection Tubes.
  2. Insert the tubes into the paperfuge , separating serum via whirligigs.
  3. Pipette serum into buffer solution and react with test paper, wobbling it on holder solftly for several minutes.
  4. A camera takes photos of the test paper under excitation source, the images is then sent to patient's mobile phone.
  5. The mobile app analyzes images and gives out result.
Figure 2 Possible operate steps of Test Paper Kit
Figure 2 Possible operate steps of Test Paper Kit

Improved Design--Magnetic Beads Kit

We also try our best to optimize our design since we found that there are some disadvantages in the way of fluorescence analysis by images. Luckly we got a great idea from our team instructors who introduced the streptavidin magnetic beads to us, we shared this optional idea with other teams in meetups this summer and got some feedback from other iGEM teams and experts. The brief theory of spectrometer recommended by QHFZ-China iGEM team also helped us a lot. More details are presented on our Human Practice Page.

The major instrument in Magnetic Beads Kit contains 1) capillary blood collecting tubes, 2) sterile bag, 3) paperfuge, 4) streptavidin-biotin magnetic beads, 5) magnetic separator , 6)portable device, and 7) USB & charger. The magnetic separator removes all streptavidin-biotin magnetic beads from solution, then the liquid will be recorded by portable device. This kind of portable device is a fluorescence detector, which inspired by QHFZ-China iGEM team and online sources[2-6].

Figure 3 Design of Magnetic Beads Kit
Figure 3 Design of Magnetic Beads Kit

In theory there is no red fluorescence in the solution under uric acid free condition. When uric acid is present, HucR-mCherry will leave pHucO so that the red fluorescence can be found in solution. Using a detection swab to collect a small amount of solution and insert it into the portable device, the number of uric acid will be showed on screen after detecting.

Figure 4 Possible operate steps of Magnetic Beads Kit
Figure 4 Possible operate steps of Magnetic Beads Kit
Reference
  1. Bhamla M S , Benson B , Chai C , et al. Paperfuge: An ultralow-cost, hand-powered paper-centrifuge inspired by the mechanics of a whirligig toy. APS March Meeting 2017. American Physical Society, 2017.
  2. Asheim J，Kvittingen EV，Kvittingen L，et al. A Simple，Small-Scale Lego Colorimeter with a Light-Emitting Diode（LED Used as Detector［J］.Journal of Chemical Education，2014，91（7）：1037-1039
  3. FENG Qiting, PENG Baojin, CHEN Danlu，et al. The design and implementation of a simple spectroscopy instrument［J］.OPTICAL INSTRUMENTS,, 2013, v.35;No.330(2):80-84.
  4. Haga T, Sonehara T, Uchida K, et al. Fluorescence detector[J]. 2014.
  5. Sharififar A, Singh K, Jones E, et al. Evaluating a low‐cost portable NIR spectrometer for the prediction of soil organic and total carbon using different calibration models[J]. Soil Use and Management, 2019.
  6. （Online Source ）http://www.qdjchb.com/productshow-132-345-2196-1.html