Team:ECUST China/Implementation
In the beginning, we targeted people in families and communities who needed rapid nucleic acid testing. However, with the improvement of the project, we decided to design two kinds of D-E-detectors to adapt to different application environments. The basic POCT type equipment will be used for nucleic acid detection in the community, while the high-throughput D-E-detector plus will be used to detect mutations in the target site of laboratories.
In the community, everyone who needs to be tested can pay a small fee to use the D-E-detector once and get the test results. Because the detection process only needs one person to complete, so the test results will be private. In the laboratory, the researchers can design the detection elements in different channels of D-E-tector plus and use multi-channel simultaneous detection to obtain the data that can confirm the site mutation.
We will produce two types of D-E-detectors and market them to communities or laboratories in need. We will use the profits to expand production and improve our design.
We used a partial sequence from the SARS-CoV-2 N gene when validating the D-E-tector, which we have described in safety form. In our plan, we also want to use pseudovirus for validation (we haven't started this part yet), which requires more rigorous experimental manipulation and completion of the experiment in a secondary laboratory. If the project enters the clinical trial, we need to strictly follow the hospital's specifications and get adequate safety protection. As a product, D-E-tector is an equipment used to detect viruses, so it is necessary to ensure that the product itself is clean. Strict storage and operation specifications need to be established to ensure that the accuracy of the equipment is not affected. The equipment must be cleaned and disposable parts must be replaced before the next user uses it. In addition, the waste generated in the process of product testing should be collected and recycled uniformly. The results of the test will only be obtained by the subject. The test results will have enough medical significance.
We need to control the cost of D-E-tector to gain market competitiveness. We need to make the D-E-tector available for national approval to make its test results valid. We also need to ensure that users can easily access disposable raw materials in the equipment, which requires us to layout our logistics network. And we need to meet environmental standards and properly deal with the waste generated by testing equipment.