The research groups led by Prof. Joonseok Lee (Hanyang University), Prof. Yong Shin (Yonsei University), and Prof. Rhokyun Kwak (Hanyang University) have announced the devolopment of a disposable chip that improves the efficiency of pathogen enrichment and nucleic acid isolation, enabling early disease diagnosis. 

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has highlighted the limitations of existing diagnostic methods. In particular, the conventional nucleic acid extraction techniques require multiple processing steps, suffer from external contamination and sample loss, and cannot be scaled up for processing samples with low pathogen concentrations in the early stage of infection.

To overcome these challenges, the research team developed a new nucleic preparation chip called the biporous silica nanofilms-embedded sample preparation chip (BSNFs-chip). These nanofilms with three-dimensional nanopores not only enhance the surface area but also effectively induce nanovortex within the pores, significantly enhancing pathogen and nucleic acid capture efficiency. This chip, utilizing electrostatic attraction for pathogen/nucleic acid capture and maintaining nucleic acid stability without chaotropic agents, achieves a 100-fold higher sensitivity than conventional column-based extraction method in qRT-PCR analysis.

Furthermore, the research team demonstrated the potential for PCR-free diagnostics by identifying target viral RNA through nanoparticle-based luminescence resonance energy transfer (LRET) analysis, reducing the sample processing to diagnosis time to under 50 minutes. This technology dramatically reduces detection time and costs compared to existing PCR-based diagnostics, enabling rapid response, especially in the early stages of infection. 

This research is expected to significantly improve the ability to respond to infectious diseases in the current health crisis, where rapid and accurate diagnosis is crucial. The research groups expect that this technology can be applied in the future not only to the diagnosis of various pathogens but also to a wider range of medical fields.

Schematic of a disposable nucleic acid preparation chip embedded with biporous nanofilms inducing nanovortex and a sketch of the sample preparation process.

A Biporous nanofilms-embedded sample preparation chip; nucleic acid enrichment and isolation via nanovortex within nanofilm; disease diagnosis using pretreated samples.

[Reference] E. Jeon. et al. (2024) “Biporous silica nanostructure-induced nanovortex in microfluidics for nucleic acid enrichment, isolation, and PCR-free detection.” Nature Communications. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-45467-w

[Main Author] Eunyoung Jeon (Hanyang University/1st author), Bonhan Koo (Yonsei University/1st author), Suyeon Kim (Hanyang University/1st author), Rhokyun Kwak (Hanyang University/corresponding author), Yong Shin (Yonsei University/corresponding author), Joonseok Lee (Hanyang University/corresponding author)

* Contact : joonseoklee@hanyang.ac.kr (Prof. Joonseok Lee), shinyongno1@yonsei.ac.kr (Prof. Yong Shin), rhokyun@hanyang.ac.kr (Prof. Rhokyun Kwak)