A portable instrument for the optical interrogation of a novel biochip

In the present paper a novel optical system for the monitoring and measurements of different analytes in Point of Care Testing (POCT) is presented. It is based on an optical biochip constituted by a two-piece polymethylmetacrylate (PMMA) chip, with 13 microchannels through which the analysed sample flows, and the sensing layer, where the immunochemical reaction takes place, is located on the bottom side of the upper piece of the PMMA chip. All the electronics, optoelectronics and fluidics components are embedded in a portable instrument is totally controlled by software. Preliminary tests on C-reactive protein (CRP) and procalcitonin (PCT) immunoassay are reported.