50 n MACHINE BUILDING April 2023 www.drivesncontrols.com UK diagnostic tester will save lives worldwide Fast MDx is a Londonbased enterprise that aims to make ultra-fast molecular diagnostic testing available at an affordable cost worldwide. It has developed a testing system that can be used close to patients, and slashes the typical 24-48 hour waiting time for test results to just 1-2 hours. The system can detect many upper respiratory tract pathogens with unrivalled speed and without the need for costly biosecure laboratories. The fully automated system will provide clinicians with faster, more reliable results, enabling them to give patients personalised treatment plans rapidly. The high-throughput testing system – thought to be the first of its type in the world – is due to be launched in June 2023 in a version that can perform multiplexed, CE-IVDr-approved tests for common respiratory pathogens, influenza A and B, RSV A and B, and Covid-19. Further tests will be added soon. The platform is designed to be set up close to patients in hospitals, clinics or surgeries. It will save time, costs and the need to transport samples to remote laboratories. “As a result, infected people receive faster personalised treatment,” explains Fast MDx’s founder and CEO, Richard Lewis. The platform “is mobile and can therefore be used anywhere,” he adds. “Only one technician is required to operate it, rather than the five normally needed in a central laboratory to process up to 1,000 patient samples in an eight-hour shift.” Another attraction is a reduced environmental impact because of shorter transport routes and lower vehicle emissions. In addition, the samples do not need doublepackaging, which normally has to be incinerated after being used only once to prevent crosscontamination. The Fast MDx platform relies on automation technology to perform its pipetting and dispensing operations. As well as saving time, automated testing reduces the human errors associated with manually pipetting hundreds of samples. The platform includes everything needed for testing, from the sample tubes and swabs to the electronic transmission of results to hospitals, clinics or doctors’ surgeries. Gantries with electric axes handle the pipettes and PCR microtiter plates. The platform needs just 0.7 x 1m of floor space and can be moved easily from one place to another. The UK machine-builder Applied Automation was responsible for assembling the system, and for all aspects of safety, risk analysis and CE marking. In use, an operator inserts three racks of pipette tips and a 96-well microtiter plate into the system. An assay kit with all of the necessary reagents and controls is loaded into an aluminium block and clipped into place. Patient samples, held in FastMDx’s patented Pathtubes, are tracked throughout the process using laser-etched barcodes on the bottom of the tubes. During sample preparation, a planar surface gantry (Festo’s EXCM system) operates in the X and Y planes. The 92 patient samples are scanned from below using optical sensors to track and confirm that all are present. The automated pipetting system, consisting of a pipetting head and the disposable syringe ejector, is mounted on the planar surface gantry in the Z direction. The pipetting head can dispense 10μl volumes accurately, and the pipetting speed can be set to dispense up to 10ml/s. A master mix is prepared, placed in the microtiter plate and the samples are added. A disposable tip pierces the Pathtube cap. Each sample is aspirated and pipetted into the master mix in one of the A UK enterprise has developed a low-cost automated diagnostics test platform that, it says, will slash time and costs, allowing doctors to give patients personalised treatment plans rapidly. The platform makes extensive use of industrial automation technologies. Fast MDx’s platform uses two 3D gantries with pipetting and transport attachments to perform an automated sequence of molecular diagnostic tests.
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