Lab on a chip diagnostic device for point of care testing of non communicable diseases

Abstract

According to a statistics by WHO, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) account 70% of the total mortalities globally and more than three-quarters of these deaths occur in low and middle-income countries. WHO estimates that total deaths from noncommunicable diseases will increase by 17% over the next 10 years. As the prevalence of NCDs rises, there will be greater demand for NCD-related healthcare services, including diagnosis and treatment. Effective prevention, diagnosis, and management of NCDs in rural and urban areas require healthcare to be more patient-centered rather than centralized. The point of care technology aims to provide cost-effective health care at every doorstep. Lab-on-a-chip (LOC) systems are an attractive approach which can revolutionize the simple point of care device market dramatically by converging complex laboratory functions into a small chip that is of a few centimetres in size. Convergences of the three fields namely, biosensors, microfluidics and microelectronics lead to the successful development of a LOC. Commercially available biosensor utilize enzymes, immune agents, proteins and nucleic acids as biorecognition element which are associated with drawbacks such as stringent operating conditions and high cost. By making use of non-enzymatic electrochemical biosensors the disadvantages of enzyme based sensors can be eliminated without compromising on sensor characteristics such as selectivity, sensitivity, dynamic range, low detection limit and low cost. This thesis explains the development of a LOC device for the diagnosis of major NCDs such as diabetes, kidney and liver diseases, gout and oxidative stress related diseases by the simultaneous detection of glucose, creatinine, bilirubin, uric acid and ascorbic acid. For the detection of glucose, creatinine, bilirubin, ascorbic acid and uric acid, non-enzymatic electrochemical sensors have been developed and tested. ...