Company insight
MEDICA and COMPAMED come together to exhibit their outpatient and inpatient care segments, and range of products and services for medical technology, respectively. Point-of-care testing
point of care testing (POCT). However, creating the ‘ideal’ POC test is a great challenge: besides being affordable, sensitive, specific and user friendly, it also must be quick, robust, should not require additional devices and be deliverable to end consumers.
The tests employed during the pandemic have shown that the various methods have different limitations and that there is need for improvement. PCR tests, for example, are more time- consuming and need to be evaluated in a laboratory, which makes this method expensive and limits throughput. Antigen tests, on the other hand, have a low sensitivity and sometimes provide false negative results.
Antibody tests that detect whether the patient has already recovered from an infection also have limited sensitivity. “These limitations show that there is no silver bullet when it comes to testing,” states Dr Holger Becker, chief scientific officer at microfluidic ChipShop. Nonetheless, the expert is convinced that POCT will receive a sustainable boost and that microfluidics will play a key role, especially in molecular testing.
In future, we can expect to see additional technologies emerge in the field of POCT, which will catch on more easily in light of the pandemic. These include direct imaging techniques, potentially combined with artificial intelligence (AI) or silicon-based sensors (for example, silicon photonics). CRISPR diagnostics are a relatively new tool (CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) that is used to identify specific RNA sequences. When detecting RNA viruses, one usually only has relatively small bits of genetic material in which to detect a virus-specific genetic sequence. CRISPR diagnostics use a Cas enzyme and a fluorescently labelled reporter RNA molecule. If the sample contains the targeted RNA, the Cas enzyme begins cutting the RNA from both the target and the reporter molecule, thus releasing the coloured label, which in turn allows it to be detected. In other words, this is an indirect form of detection that, at the same time, is extremely specific – a true benefit. Covid-19 and the extremely rapid development of effective vaccines have moved microfluidics and associated topics
Medical Device Developments /
www.nsmedicaldevices.com
to the centre of attention. Microsystems that can safely handle the smallest amounts of liquid and gas have become an integral part of medical technology. COMPAMED will present multiple captivating examples of how rapid innovation can drive results in the clinical setting. These innovations and many more will be showcased at COMPAMED 2021: from microtechnology and new materials to packaging solutions for the medical technology field, and answers to any questions that may arise along the process chain for medical-technological product development and manufacturing. The trade fair halls are open from 10am to 6pm on all days of the trade fair. All visitors and exhibitors must comply with the 3G rule (they must be vaccinated, recovered or tested: this is what the three Gs stand for in German) in order to enter the trade fair premises. Tickets can be purchased exclusively online.
All information, for example, current news on the hygiene and infection protection concept at MEDICA 2021 and COMPAMED 2021, can be viewed online.●
www.medica-tradefair.com
www.compamed-tradefair.com
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