Self-served and fully automated biochemical detection of finger-prick blood at home using a portable microfluidic analyzer

Abstract

The burden of chronic diseases is unquestionably a predominant challenge to global health. Chronic diseases are the long-term diseases and their intervention requires frequent monitoring of disease development, which makes the self-checkup of blood biochemistry at home highly desired. However, there is few devices that can be used at home for simultaneous test of multiple finger-prick blood biochemicals. In this study, a fully integrated microfluidic analyzer which can perform multiple blood biochemical analysis is proposed. The finger-prick blood can be directly aspirated into the chip containing diluent and lyophilized reagents, and the following processes, including serum/plasma separation and metering, diluent release and metering, quantified serum/plasma and diluent mixing, the diluted serum/plasma distribution to the reaction chambers, and the biochemical reaction and results measurement, were sequentially and automatically performed on the self-contained microfluidic chip. Using this one key operated portable analyzer, users can easily accomplish their own biochemical detection without medical training, making self-served health monitoring for chronic diseases at biochemical level possible. In the current report, fully automated detection for three blood biochemical indexes, including blood glucose, total cholesterol and triglycerides, were achieved in 15 min. The finger-prick blood samples from volunteers were measured by this microfluidic analyzer, and the results were comparable to those obtained from a commercial biochemical analyzer used in hospital.