A Training Device to Build Technical Skills and Expand Access to High-Performance Diagnostic Testing

According to Caltech News, engineers there have built a low-cost device that coaches people with little or no lab training through complex diagnostic procedures—a counterpoint to fears that automation simply replaces workers. The tool guides users through sample-pooling, in which material from many people is combined into one sample before testing, a technique that cuts cost and supplies but is error-prone and usually confined to large labs with robotic handlers. Built from off-the-shelf electronics, 3D-printed parts, and open-source systems, the device gives language-agnostic, step-by-step instructions and flashes lights or sounds when a user misses a step. In a trial of forty-eight participants, most with no lab experience, it produced more high-quality pools than paper instructions. Validated against archived stool samples from children in Bangladesh, it showed one hundred percent agreement with the leading PCR method for detecting soil-transmitted worms, parasites that affect an estimated one point five billion people worldwide. The team hopes such train-and-assist tools can extend high-quality testing to clinics that lack expensive automation.

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