An Open-Source, Automated, and Cost-Effective Platform for COVID-19 Diagnosis and Rapid Portable Genomic Surveillance Using Nanopore Sequencing

We introduce an open-source automated platform for high-throughput RNA extraction and pathogen diagnosis, which uses reagents almost entirely produced in-house. This platform integrates our methods for self-manufacturing magnetic nanoparticles and qRT-PCR reagents which have received regulatory approval for clinical use with an in-house, open-source robotic extraction protocol. It also incorporates our "Nanopore Sequencing of Isothermal Rapid Viral Amplification for Near Real-time Analysis" (NIRVANA) technology, designed for tracking SARS-CoV-2 mutations and variants. Automated NIRVANA effectively identifies circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants.