TECHNOLOGIES, APPLICATIONS AND COMMERCIALIZATION OF POINT-OF-CARE DIAGNOSTICS
MONDAY, April 10, 14:00-17:00

Instructor: Holger Becker, Ph.D., Founder & CSO, microfluidic ChipShop GmbH

This short course will provide an overview on the technological aspects of POC system developments. It will introduce current technologies such as microfluidics, sensors, paper- and smartphone-based approaches and discuss their trends and limitations. The course will discuss a variety of POC systems in different stages of their development, from early stage to established diagnostic systems in the clinical routine. Market aspects of POC systems as well as practical examples of commercialization for molecular diagnostic, immunological and clinical tests will be presented.

Table of contents:

• Introduction to Point-of-Care diagnostic systems
• Technical aspects of POC development
• Microfluidics
• Lateral flow and paper-based systems
• Detection technologies
• Sensors and wearables
• Development and manufacturing aspects of POC systems
• System examples
• Commercialization issues
• Conclusions

Instructor Biography:

Holger Becker, Ph.D., Founder & CSO, microfluidic ChipShop GmbH

Dr Holger Becker is co-founder and CSO of microfluidic ChipShop GmbH. He obtained physics degrees from the University of Western Australia/Perth and the University of Heidelberg. He started to work on miniaturized systems for chemical analysis during his PhD thesis at Heidelberg University, where he obtained his PhD in 1995. Between 1995 and 1997 he was a Research Associate at Imperial College with Prof. Andreas Manz. In 1998 he joined Jenoptik Mikrotechnik GmbH. Since then, he founded and led several companies in the field of microsystem technologies in medicine and the life sciences. He was nominated for the German Founders Prize in 2004. He lead the Industry Group of the German Physical Society between 2004 and 2009, was co-chair of MicroTAS 2013, and is the current chair of the SPIE ‘‘Microfluidics, BioMEMS and Medical Microsystems’’ conference. He serves on the Editorial Board of “Lab-on-a-Chip” as well as acting as a regular reviewer of project proposals on a national and international level.