Zymeron aims to develop user-friendly technologies and devices to achieve Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) testing at home. Without special training required, anyone can prepare an HCV RNA sample from fingerprick blood for subsequent isothermal amplification and paper-based nanoenhanced sensitive detection just by following simple instructions. The two innovations that Zymeron will develop to achieve such an aim are (i) an easy to use blood processing device that allows an end user to collect blood from fingerprick and separate plasma automatically; and (ii) a novel paper-based test cassette that integrates multistep nucleic acids amplification testing (NAATs) in one single device. Based on the success of using these proven innovations developed inhouse for Point-of-Care (POC) testing, Zymeron will further advance these technologies to be suitable for home testing of HCV, providing the simplest routine operation for any potential end user to run the kit all by themselves. For a long-term goal, the innovation invented in this proposal will not only benefit specifically for HCV screening but also for other at-home and POC tests in resource-limited settings that rely upon rapid NAAT of plasma samples.
