Researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed a portable COVID-19 microfluidics-based polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test system called Epidax.
The system allows patients to get tested for the disease at the point of care and receive results in about an hour, according to the university's Institute for Health Innovation and Technology (iHealthtech). It is about the size of a toaster, and processes nasal samples right after they are collected, bypassing the step of RNA extraction.
The NUS team has filed a patent for Epidax and is talking to a medical technology firm about bringing it to market, the university said.
