Unmanned PCR System for Virus Monitoring Utilizing a Film Chip Roll

We present an unmanned PCR system developed for monitoring airborne viruses in life space. All the steps for virus diagnosis, such as virus collection, sample/reagent transport, PCR thermal cycling, real-time fluorescence detection, virus decision, and data transfer, are integrated in our system. For unmanned operation of the system, all diagnostic steps are processed by a LabViewautomation program. A film chip roll, which is made by rolling many film chips in a roll, is utilized for continuous operation of the virus monitoring system. In this paper, we report the design, fabrication, and tests of our system.