KCS

World health organization (WHO) warns against ‘post-antibiotic’ era as a consequence of the rapid emergence of drug-resistant pathogens, so called superbugs, that are not treated by most of antibiotics. Advanced diagnostic techniques allow clinicians to prevent inappropriate prescribing and overuse of antibiotics which may delay the emergence of life-threatening pathogens. In this study, we aim to develop a low-cost plastic device for rapid and accurate pathogen detection. We applied a nature-inspired material-independent biosilicification process on the surface of plastics that is difficult to be functionalized by conventional surface chemistry due to intrinsic hydrophobicity and lack of functional groups for bioconjugation. By this approach, the surface of polycarbonate and polypropylene-based plastic devices with micro-pillar structure were successfully decorated by silica so that we could selectively enrich bacterial RNA from whole lysate on the surface of devices. Surface-enriched RNA was further detected by on-chip colorimetric loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) within 30 minutes.