IoT PCR for pandemic disease detection and its spread monitoring

• Published in: Sensors and actuators. B, Chemical Vol. 303; p. 127098
• Main Authors: Zhu, Hanliang, Podesva, Pavel, Liu, Xiaocheng, Zhang, Haoqing, Teply, Tomas, Xu, Ying, Chang, Honglong, Qian, Airong, Lei, Yingfeng, Li, Yu, Niculescu, Andreea, Iliescu, Ciprian, Neuzil, Pavel
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Elsevier B.V 15.01.2020; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: Bluetooth; Dengue fever; Deoxyribonucleic acid; Disease control; DNA; Epidemics; Health care; Infectious diseases; Internet of Things; IoT; Outbreaks; PCR; Polymerase chain reaction; Smartphones; System effectiveness; Viral diseases; Viruses; Infectious diseases; Dengue fever; PCR; IoT
• ISSN: 0925-4005; 1873-3077; 0925-4005
• DOI: 10.1016/j.snb.2019.127098

•We show a highly integrated internet of things (IoT) system based on polymerase chain reaction for disease detection and monitoring its spreading.•The detection results were automatically uploaded via a Bluetooth interface to user's smartphone.•Together with global positioning system coordinates of the test spot at further sent via global network.•The map of the infectious disease outbreak was instantly produced.•This device can be used for other diseases and become a basic block of the IoT helping to tackle infectious disease outbreak. During infectious disease outbreaks, the centers for disease control need to monitor particular areas. Considerable effort has been invested in the development of portable, user-friendly, and cost-effective systems for point-of-care (POC) diagnostics, which could also create an Internet of Things (IoT) for healthcare via a global network. However, at present IoT based on a functional POC instrument is not available. Here we show a fast, user-friendly, and affordable IoT system based on a miniaturized polymerase chain reaction device. We demonstrated the system’s capability by amplification of complementary deoxyribonucleic acid (cDNA) of the dengue fever virus. The resulting data were then automatically uploaded via a Bluetooth interface to an Android-based smartphone and then wirelessly sent to a global network, instantly making the test results available anywhere in the world. The IoT system presented here could become an essential tool for healthcare centers to tackle infectious disease outbreaks identified either by DNA or ribonucleic acid.