(Nanowerk Spotlight) Advanced molecular diagnostics tests that can rapidly and precisely detect diseases within the home could revolutionize preventive medicine and improve global biosecurity. Nucleic acid amplification tests (NAATs) like polymerase chain reaction (PCR) provide high sensitivity and specificity for infectious disease identification by amplifying pathogen DNA and RNA.

However, centralized lab-based NAATs require complex, tedious sample processing steps like pathogen lysis, nucleic acid purification, and enzymatic amplification. These manual procedures rely on trained personnel operating expensive equipment, limiting accessibility.