Last week, four members of the Wheeler Lab departed for Kenya to perform a field-validation study for measles and rubella using a new version of the DropBot. The new system (which we refer to as the Measles/Rubella-BOX or MR-BOX) is capable of performing four simultaneous sandwich ELISAs in about 40 minutes using a chemiluminescent readout. It detects light by measuring the current from a photomultiplier tube (PMT) using another piece of open-hardware developed in the Wheeler lab called the DStat. It also features an integrated amplifier, a magnet for performing bead-based separation, a webcam, LED lighting, and a humidity and temperature sensor. The assay is based on earlier work with Rubella and we’ve since added the capability to test for measles at the same time. We are using 100% low-cost, inkjet-printed DMF devices.
In preparation for this project, we’ve made significant updates to the Microdrop software, including path routing, new quality control tests, and lots of usability improvements. We hope to preview some of these features here on the blog in the coming weeks and we will release updated installers later this summer.
We’ll be testing 150 clinical samples at the Kakuma refugee camp over the next 3 weeks. Check out the video below for an introduction to the project, and if interested, follow our progress on twitter.