Microprocessor-controlled microfluidic platform for pathogen, toxin, biomarker, and chemical detection with removable updatable sensor array for food and water safety, medical, and laboratory applications

Abstract

The invention provides a platform technology with rich ability to flexibly perform, create, deploy, maintain, and update a wide range of panels, assay, array, and/or sequence of tests for a wide range of substances and pathogens. The invention provides a unifying framework for widely-ranging miniature sensor implementation, fluidic/gas interfacing, electrical interfaces and optical interfaces, and further by collocating, allowing the integration a large number highly-selective sensors and chemical sensors—together as needed with appropriately selected supplemental sensors (for example temperature, pH, selective ions, etc.), into a common readily-manufacturable framework. The diverse sensor arrays give rise to statistical enhancing through novel statistical processing approaches. The invention is deployable and useable in a wide range of situations previously unavailable, and addresses many otherwise problematic aspects of field testing for food safety, water safety, epidemic outbreaks, routine diagnosis, and disease monitoring.