Open Source Platform Technology

i-Diagnostics is large-scale project. It involves multiple dimensions in many areas, including creating biological defense infrastructure and a social network. It will establish a new type of collaboration between research groups involved in different aspects of diagnostics. It is infeasible for a single group or organization to address the numerous challenges each application presents. To address this limitation, i-Diagnostics has chosen a unique approach that is fueled by the collective global effort of scientists, engineers, businessmen, and administrators in the framework of Open Innovation Business Model. More about the principles of Open Innovation Business Model (OIBM) here.

In the field of information technologies, Linux is an example of a project that followed an OIBM. As a result, Linux became ubiquitous and invited many collaborators from around the world. Arduino is an example of OIBM application for the open-source electronic prototyping platform enabling users to create interactive electronic objects. Arduino also became an omnipresent platform, for which customers/collaborators created countless applications. We envision a model similar to Arduino and Linux but in the area of molecular diagnostics. Open Innovation will stimulate the exchange of Intellectual Property (IP) between collaborators.  i-Diagnostics will become an open-source biodetection platform for thousands of molecular diagnostics applications. To facilitate these tasks TIRF Labs will supply TIRF hardware, software, cartridge blanks, development tools, reagent kits, methods, and protocols to our collaborators and development customers to help interface their existing bioassays with the i-Diagnostics platform and develop new assays. TIRF Labs plans to offer IP licensing to our collaborators and will offer them the opportunity to license our IP (in certain instances free of charge) to develop precise, rapid, and still affordable devices for molecular diagnosis and prognosis. To enable all of the stages of this challenging project, from biomarker discovery to clinical testing, TIRF Labs offers the uTIRF Biodetection Station and the Application Development Kit (ADK). ADK-uTIRF products are available to all members of the diagnostic community, including academic, industrial, and government research groups, and are essential to the Open Innovation Business Model.

Due to the Open Innovation Business Model, our collaborators and customers will be able not only innovate outside the i-Diagnostics biodetection boundaries but will be welcome to innovate within i-Diagnostics platform. The architecture of i-Diagnostics cradle, cartridges and sample preparation elements is largely modularized according to their functions, which allows for changing each function independently of the rest of the system. TIRF Labs pursues the objective to modularize the i-Diagnostics platform so that one core function is contained in one hardware module. We apply a similar philosophy to i-Diagnostics software as well. Our approach involves the standardization of modules and interfaces. Certain design rules need to be followed to seamlessly interface the innovative module into the platform. This allows for combining a theoretically unlimited number of modules, similar to LEGO pieces.

In TIRF Labs  we have started to practice the Open Innovation Business Model, when we supplied the first units of the uTIRF biodetection station and Application Development Kit (ADK) to our collaborators and customers. The feedback that we have received from them has inspired us to further improve the versatile uTIRF biodetection station, expand the ADK and plan the creation of a dedicated department to efficiently support the developments and innovations of our customers and collaborators. TIRF Labs seeks funds to establish such a department. Our first customers and collaborators rapidly generated dozens of other applications related to molecular diagnostics, including biomarker discovery, elucidating the mechanisms of disease, routine clinical analyses, and even the measurement of chemical analytes. Applications for the i-Diagnostics platform include the diagnosis and prognosis of cancer, heart diseases, infectious diseases, including STD, longevity studies, food and water safety, military, forensic, environmental, and agricultural applications, as well as disease prevention actions and counter-measures against bioterrorism and naturally occurring diseases. For more information about i-Diagnostics applications click here