Hamidizadeh Mojdeh, Martins Renata F, Bier Frank F
Institute of Biochemistry and Biology, Chair of Molecular Bioanalytics and Bioelectronics, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany.
Institute of Molecular Diagnostics and Bioanalytics (IMDB) gGmbH, Potsdam, Germany.
Mol Diagn Ther. 2025 Jan;29(1):67-80. doi: 10.1007/s40291-024-00753-7. Epub 2024 Nov 17.
Compromising between accuracy and rapidity is an important issue in analytics and diagnostics, often preventing timely and appropriate reactions to disease. This issue is particularly critical for infectious diseases, where reliable and rapid diagnosis is crucial for effective treatment and easier containment, thereby reducing economic and societal impacts. Diagnostic technologies are vital in disease modeling, tracking, treatment decision making, and epidemic containment. At the point-of-care level in modern healthcare, accurate diagnostics, especially those involving genetic-level analysis and nucleic acid amplification techniques, are still needed. However, implementing these techniques in remote or non-laboratory settings poses challenges because of the need for trained personnel and specialized equipment, as all nucleic acid-based diagnostic techniques, such as polymerase chain reaction and isothermal nucleic acid amplification, require temperature cycling or elevated and stabilized temperatures. However, in smart food packaging, there are approved and commercially available methods that use temperature regulation to enable autonomous heat generation without external sources, such as chemical heaters with phase change materials. These approaches could be applied in diagnostics, facilitating point-of-care, electricity-free molecular diagnostics, especially with nucleic acid-based detection methods such as isothermal nucleic acid amplification. In this review, we explore the potential interplay between self-heating elements, isothermal nucleic acid amplification techniques, and phase change materials. This paves the way for the development of truly portable, electricity-free, point-of-care diagnostic tools, particularly advantageous for on-site detection in resource-limited remote settings and for home use.
在分析和诊断中，在准确性和速度之间进行权衡是一个重要问题，这常常阻碍对疾病做出及时且恰当的反应。这个问题对于传染病尤为关键，因为可靠且快速的诊断对于有效治疗和更易于控制疫情至关重要，从而减少经济和社会影响。诊断技术在疾病建模、追踪、治疗决策和疫情控制中至关重要。在现代医疗保健的即时护理层面，仍然需要准确的诊断，尤其是那些涉及基因水平分析和核酸扩增技术的诊断。然而，由于需要训练有素的人员和专门设备，在偏远或非实验室环境中实施这些技术面临挑战，因为所有基于核酸的诊断技术，如聚合酶链反应和等温核酸扩增，都需要温度循环或升高并稳定的温度。然而，在智能食品包装中，有经批准且可商购的方法利用温度调节来实现无需外部热源的自主发热，例如带有相变材料的化学加热器。这些方法可应用于诊断，促进即时护理、无需电力的分子诊断，特别是对于基于核酸的检测方法，如等温核酸扩增。在本综述中，我们探讨了自热元件、等温核酸扩增技术和相变材料之间的潜在相互作用。这为开发真正便携式、无需电力的即时护理诊断工具铺平了道路，这对于资源有限的偏远地区的现场检测和家庭使用特别有利。
