From Sampling to Result Reporting, Nucleic Acid Testing in the Future Will Be "unmanned"
The COVID-19 epidemic is still plaguing countries around the world, and medical staff working on the front line are facing huge risks and pressure. In order to solve the infection problem and improve work efficiency, automated nucleic acid testing equipment came into being.
Nucleic acid testing, a once unfamiliar medical term, has now become one of this year's hot words.
In the fight against the epidemic, medical staff responsible for nucleic acid testing are among the people closest to the virus. They are warriors "holding" the virus in their hands and have to bear great infection risks and psychological pressure in their work.
Even if the medical staff who stick to the front line are fully armed, they still cannot avoid infection 100%. According to the report of the China Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 3,000 medical staff in China have been infected with the new coronavirus. And tens of thousands of medical staff around the world have not escaped the fate of being infected.
In response to this situation, various medical and scientific research institutions are actively developing automated solutions to reduce the risk of cross-infection among medical staff from the source.
In the future, the arduous and glorious task of nucleic acid testing can be handed over to these lovely machines.
Fully self-service nucleic acid sampling machine, do it yourself in 5 minutes
On November 11, at the High-Tech Fair which opened in Shenzhen, a "nucleic acid testing self-service sampling machine" attracted many visitors.
According to the introduction,This self-service sampling machine can realize intelligent, all-weather, unattended nucleic acid swab sampling.
The first step of self-service sampling: identity recognition
First of all, before sampling, the person being sampled must first register his or her identity information through facial recognition.
After reading and authenticating the identity information of the person being sampled, the computer immediately obtains a unique ID. The entire sampling process thereafter is associated with this ID, avoiding possible errors caused by manual operation.
Self-service sampling step 2: throat swab sampling
After completing the identity registration,The sampled person can receive a special sampling tool and mouth opener, and then, under the guidance of the video, accurately find the effective sampling site for the throat swab and collect qualified samples.Afterwards, a robot is used to automatically collect, package and preserve the samples.
If the collection is not in place, the sample may be invalid. Therefore, in order to ensure the authenticity and effectiveness of the sampling,The autonomous sampling machine can obtain samples from four effective parts at one time. The sampling tool will automatically trigger the swab to rotate after the swab reaches the sampling area to ensure that epithelial cells are collected.
Currently, the nucleic acid test self-service sampling machine takes about 5 to 8 minutes for a single person to collect samples.And it can meet the requirements of single sampling and mixed sampling (single sampling means that the sample of one person is in one collection tube alone, and mixed sampling means that the samples of multiple people are collected in one collection tube. The purpose of mixed sampling is to improve detection efficiency).
Researchers and developers said that the self-service nucleic acid sampling machine can complete nucleic acid sampling around the clock without human supervision. Various models are suitable for different usage scenarios and are widely used. It is a powerful tool for rapid large-scale sampling and can be put into use in customs, hospitals, and areas where epidemics break out in the future.
Nucleic acid extraction, amplification, machine testing, packaging and handing over to the machine
Nucleic acid testing involves multiple steps, and sampling is only the first step.
After sampling, the extraction and detection of nucleic acids is still a big project. From sample collection to feedback of results, it is necessary to go through multiple steps such as inactivation, plate transfer, nucleic acid extraction, reagent reaction, and result determination. During this period, the risks faced by inspectors are still very high.
Therefore, since the outbreak of the epidemic, many scientific research institutions and medical equipment manufacturers at home and abroad have successively developed automatic nucleic acid detectors, which not only improve detection efficiency, but also effectively protect relevant medical staff.
Take the automatic nucleic acid detector for COVID-19 developed by the research team of Harbin Institute of Technology as an example.It can realize the full process automation of nucleic acid extraction, amplification reaction, RT-PCR system configuration and result reporting.
The first step of automated testing: nucleic acid extraction
Nucleic acid extraction is the first and most critical step in molecular diagnostic experiments. Traditional methods mainly include phenol extraction and alkaline lysis, which involve operations such as precipitation and centrifugation. The amount of biological samples required is large, and the extraction steps are complicated, time-consuming and labor-intensive, and the yield is not high.
Automated extraction equipment speeds up this process, increasing efficiency by dozens of times.The existing equipment can basically extract about 70 samples per hour at the same time, and some equipment can even extract more than 140 samples.Moreover, each operator can operate 1-3 devices at the same time, which greatly reduces the intensity of manual work.
Automatic testing step 2: RT-PCR on-machine testing
This step mainly uses a fluorescent quantitative PCR instrument. This type of equipment is already a very mature detection equipment, and the detection time and detection throughput are similar. Basically, the need for large-scale screening can be met by increasing the number of equipment.
Common fluorescent quantitative PCR instruments, in groups of two, can test 192 samples in one round, which takes about two hours.
At present, various scientific research institutions are still constantly improving the automated nucleic acid testing scheme to strive for more convenient, rapid and accurate epidemic monitoring. In the future, it will only take tens of minutes from the time the sample enters the device to the time the report result leaves the device.
At a time when the novel coronavirus has not yet been eradicated, these automated devices will provide strong support for sudden outbreaks and regular prevention and control. The medical staff who have been fighting the epidemic on the front line can finally take off their tired uniforms and relax.
By the way, in June this year, a team of robotics engineers from the University of Southern Denmark in Denmark also developed an automatic throat swab sampling device, as shown in the picture below. Do you dare to try it?
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