A paper of the research group led by Professor HASHIMOTO Masahiko (Biosensing Laboratory, Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Faculty of Science and Engineering) appeared on the Outside Front Cover of Volume 13, Number 8 of Analytical Methods published by the Royal Society of Chemistry on February 28, 2021.

In the research of this paper, the research group successfully developed a credit card-sized microfluidic cartridge for facilitating polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification in microdroplets. The group proved that a single synthetic RNA molecule of SARS-CoV-2 RNA* could be detected using this cartridge. By further improving the usability of the developed cartridge, it is expected that this cartridge could potentially be used as a highly sensitive and highly accurate PCR testing tool for patients in the early stage of infection with low viral load.

* In this research, RNA samples that were artificially synthesized by partially mimicking the base sequence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA to eliminate the risk of infection were used.

Title of the paper

Convenient microfluidic cartridge for single-molecule droplet PCR using common laboratory equipment

Author (first author of the paper)

HASHIMOTO Masahiko
Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Faculty of Science and Engineering

Co-authors

TAKAHARA Hirokazu
(Graduated in Applied Chemistry from the Graduate School of Science and Engineering)
MATSUSHITA Hiroo
(In the second year of the master’s course in Applied Chemistry at the Graduate School of Science and Engineering)
INUI Erika
(In the first year of the master’s course in Applied Chemistry at the Graduate School of Science and Engineering)
OCHIAI Masashi
(In the first year of the master’s course in Applied Chemistry at the Graduate School of Science and Engineering)