i-Diagnostics Development Tool: Application Development Kit
i-Diagnostics Application Development Kit (ADK) is designed to facilitate all stages of assay development – from biomarker discovery to creating and testing the panels of assays. TIRF slide is the central part of i-Diagnostics cartridges. The slide carries on its surface microarrays that simultaneously detect protein, nucleic acid, and metabolite biomarkers. In most of the existing applications, protein, nucleic acid, and metabolite assays are enclosed into one common flow chamber. In specialized applications, protein, nucleic acid, and metabolite microarrays can be separated by partitions – enclosed into three parallel flow chambers. ADK is supplied with a manual microarrayer, which enables printing of the microarrays using micropipettes (Fig. 1, microarrayer panel). Initial stages of bioassay development requires rapid access to individual spots of the bioassays. To facilitate the access, ADK contains open perfusion chambers (Fig. 1, lgTIRF panel) as opposed to closed flow cells that are necessary to measure fast kinetics of response (Fig. 1, cartridges with a closed flow cell).
Fig. 2 shows the handheld i-Diagnostics cradle with cellphone inserted and cartridges for different applications. Fig. 3 Illustrates printing of i-Diagnostics microarrays by solid pin spotting using a robotic microarrayer. Fig. 4 illustrates the stages of data acquisition.
TIRF Labs has already received numerous requests from research groups worldwide to supply uTIRF and ADK products. We plan to start supplying these products along with experimental protocols. Several groups have already joined our project. We have incorporated their feedback and will incorporate future comments from our future customers in the next releases of the uTIRF and ADKs. We will supply advanced hardware, software, reagents, development tools, protocols, videos, and other support to accommodate the requirements for different diagnostic applications.
