Live Demonstration: HemeChip - A Portable Microchip Electrophoresis Technology for Point-of-Care Sickle Cell Disease Screening

Abstract

HemeChip is the first miniaturized, single-use cartridge-based microchip electrophoresis system for identifying and quantifying hemoglobin (Hb) variants from a drop of blood at the point-of-care (POC). It is estimated that 7% of world's population lives with a hemoglobin variant, and one of the most common and severe one being the recessively transmitted sickle hemoglobin which results in Sickle Cell Disease (SCD). HemeChip (Fig. 1A,C) separates Hb variants on a strip of cellulose acetate (CA) paper that is housed in the HemeChip cartridge. This HemeChip cartridge is a mass-producible, single-use cartridge that maintains a controlled environment and a constant electric field (applied through the electrodes, Fig. 1B) for the Hb separation process. The cartridge also contains an in-chip blotting mechanism and an anti-fogging feature. The anti-fogging feature is essential for real-time imaging and tracking of Hb band(s) during the separation process. HemeChip is integrated with a portable reader (Fig. 1D) to detect the type(s) and fraction of hemoglobin types present in a blood sample. HemeChip technology has been designed and developed to offer a robust, user-friendly platform to detect, identify, and quantify Hb variants (responsible for SCD variants) even in a limited resource settings.