Press Releases | January 4, 2022

A research team consisting of Daigo Natsuhara, a first year Ph.D. student and Professor Takayuki Shibata etc. at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Toyohashi University of Technology, and Professor Hirotaka Kanuka, etc. of the Jikei University School of Medicine has developed a microfluidic chip which is capable of simultaneous diagnosis of COVID-19 and influenza diseases, by applying the microfluidic chip technologies. The team has built a theoretical model that manipulates microfluidic flow with an extremely simple microchannel design and has established an optimal design theory for microfluidic chips. Further, by using the diagnostic device they developed, they performed genetic amplification experiments on four types of infectious diseases, including COVID-19, and demonstrated that multiplexed rapid and simultaneous diagnosis was possible within 30 minutes. The device can be utilized for genetic diagnoses in a range of fields (e.g. agriculture, farming, and fisheries industries, food industry, and health and medical care), not only human infectious diseases.

Full text: Development of rapid and simultaneous diagnosis of COVID-19/influenza diseases by manipulating microfluidic flow with a microfluidic chip
TUT website: Press release