Portable Medical Diagnostics System for Deep Space Mission

The team designed a noninvasive medical diagnostic device that uses a spinning platform to conduct medical diagnostics on a microliter scale. This device can accept a whole blood input, separate whole blood into plasma and cellular components, conduct a white blood cell differential count and detect protein biomarker concentrations. The microfluidic channels on the disk can conduct the required analyses with minimal manual intervention. A direct-current motor rotates the assay disk to create centrifugal force that manipulates blood flow through the microfluidic architecture. A magnetic bead-based purification method isolates the desired cells (granulocytes and lymphocytes), which are then channeled into their respective imaging chambers. Protein biomarkers are detected using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in a lateral-flow immunoassay and imaged separately. The captured images are then exported and processed to yield cell and protein biomarker counts. The analyzer features a user-friendly graphical user interface.