The Mobile Suitcase Lab Consortium aims to tackle disease outbreak investigation and pathogen detection at the point-of-care setting, directly in the field. The Mobile Suitcase Lab team has been established in 16 countries, strenghtening international collaboration and capacity building on site, for a variety of pathogens.

enlarge the image: The deployed suitcase in Senegal (Image credit: Ahmed Abd El Wahed)
enlarge the image: The glove box for sample inactivation (Image credit: Ahmed Abd El Wahed)
enlarge the image: Testing clinical samples in Bangladesh (Image Credit: Ahmed Abd El Wahed)

The Project

The RRML system consists of a fully portable and rapidly deployable mobile suitcase lab and a glovebox for safe pathogen handling. With this system, molecular technologies can be performed in the field, contributing directly on site to the monitoring, notification and supporting outbreak investigations.

  1. Diagnostic accuracy determination of point of need assays 
    Determining the diagnostic accuracy of point of need assays.
  2. International collaboration
    Building cross border collaboration involving countries from Europe, Asia and Africa.

  3. Capacity building 
    Building capacity for safe pathogen handling and molecular diagnostics in the field.

  4. Suitcase lab implementation
    Implementation of the suitcase lab for rapid detection of various pathogens.

 

Rapid nucleic acid extraction

A rapid nucleic acid extraction technology is incorporated into the RRML system to allow the use of fast and accurate RNA and DNA for downstream applications. A called "Reverse Purification" (RP, SwiftX or SpeedXtract) essentially inverses the common purification approach of standard lengthy DNA/RNA purification approaches. The total run time is 15-20 minutes including bead beating, heat lysis and magnetic bead inhibitors binding steps.

enlarge the image: Rapid extraction in the Suitcase lab (Image credit: Ahmed Abd El Wahed)
Rapid extraction in the Suitcase lab (Image credit: Ahmed Abd El Wahed)

Nanpore Technologies

RNA and DNA sequencing directly for the following syndromic targets (Gastrointestinal disease panel, Respiratory syndromic panel, Influenza testing after H and N genes amplification, vector screening (Mosquito, ticks)), Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) bacteria. Oxford Nanopore Technologies has developed the rapid and accurate sequencing technology MinION. The many advantages of this technology include: real-time sequencing, scalability and portability, affordability and non-capital expenditure, simple and rapid/or automated library preparation, long/short length of DNA/RNA (>100 kb) reads. Real-time processing of generated reads makes this technology highly promising for different clinical applications such as in-situ phylogenetic and AMR analysis. The total run time is between 2-8 hours including reverse transcription in case of RNA targets, library preparation and metagenomic sequencing and offline BLAST for data analysis.

enlarge the image: Nanopore sequencing out of the Suitcase lab (Image credit: Ahmed Abd El Wahed)
Nanopore sequencing out of the Suitcase lab (Image credit: Ahmed Abd El Wahed)

Isothermal amplification assay

The consortium has been developing isothermal amplification assays since 2015, termed as recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) assay and recombinase aided amplification (RAA) assay. It is widely regarded as a promising alternative technology to real-time PCR for field use as it provides results faster, amplifies nucleic acid at a constant lower temperature, and is accomplished with less expensive as well as simpler equipment.

enlarge the image: Suitcase laboratory with all neccessary equipment inside
The Suitcase lab. (Image credit: Ahmed Abd El Wahed)
  • The size of the suitcase is 62+49+30 cm, which is easy to carry, transport and ship. A glove box will be used to inactivate the samples to avoid contamination of the environment and keep the health care worker safe.
  • Power source from solar panel with power pack. 
  • Easy to be implemented in low resource settings
  • Cold chain independence as reagents can be kept at 38-40°C ambient temperature for months without any effect on the assay performance. 
  • A tight waste container allowing autoclaving or incinerating waste to avoid contamination of the environment.
  • Rapid time to result around 20 minutes including the extraction procedure.
Suitcaselab demonstration

Suitcase lab

Glove box for sample inactivation

Glove box for sample inactivation

The team

 Uganda

  • Dr. Julius Boniface Okuni, College of Veterinary Medicine, Animal Resources and Biosecurity
    Makerere University

 Germany

 France

Ghana 

  • Dr. Michael Frimpong, Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine
    KCCR

Ethiopia

  • Andargachew Mulu

Armauer Hansen Research Institute

 Senegal

 Madagascar

 Nigeria

 DR Congo

  • Dr. Sheila Makiala, Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale du Zaire
    INRB

 Sudan

Egypt

  • Prof. Dr. Mohamed A. Shalaby

Cairo University

Bangladesh

  • Dr. Dinesh Mondal, Prakash Ghosh

International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research

India

  • Prof. Mitali Chatterjee

IPGMER

Nepal

  • Dr Narayan Raj Bhattarai

B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences

Sri Lanka

  • Aresha Manamperi, Dr. Shalindra Ranasinghe

University of Kelaniya

University of Sri Jayewardenepura

 

 

 

Publications & News

Check out some of our previous joint publications, news and recently published articles around our projects.

Lessons from the field

A multi-country phase 2 study to evaluate the suitcase lab for rapid detection of SARS-CoV-2 in seven Sub-Saharan African countries: Lessons from the field

Read more

Mokeypox

Recombinase polymerase amplification assay for rapid detection of Monkeypox virus

READ MORE

 

Yellow Fever Virus assay

Rapid Molecular Assays for the Detection of Yellow Fever Virus in Low-Resource Settings
Read More

Viral Hemorrhagic Fever assay

Development of Mobile Laboratory for Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Detection in Africa
Read More

SARS-COV-2 assay

Suitcase Lab for Rapid Detection of SARS-CoV-2 Based on Recombinase Polymerase Amplification Assay
Read More

Dengue assay

Recombinase Polymerase Amplification Assay for Rapid Diagnostics of Dengue Infection
Read more

Ebola assay

Development and deployment of a rapid recombinase polymerase amplification Ebola virus detection assay in Guinea in 2015
read more

Mycobacterium ulcerans assay

Rapid detection of Mycobacterium ulcerans with isothermal recombinase polymerase amplification assay
read more

Chikungunya assay

A Field-Deployable Reverse Transcription Recombinase Polymerase Amplification Assay for Rapid Detection of the Chikungunya Virus
read more

Pan-rickettsial assay

Development of a pan-rickettsial molecular diagnostic test based on recombinase polymerase amplification assay
read more

Consortium Partners

University of Ibadan

Logo of the University of Ibadan (Nigeria)
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Institut Pasteur de Madagascar

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Institut Pasteur de Dakar

Logo of the Institut Pasteur de Dakar (Senegal)
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Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research Tropical Medicine

Logo of the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine (KCCR) logo (Image credit: Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine) (Ghana)
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Institut Pasteur

Logo of the Insitut Pasteur (France)
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University of Khartoum

Logo of the University of Khartoum (Sudan)
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COVAB Makerere University

Logo of the Makerere University (Uganda)
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Cairo University

 

Armauer Hansen Research Institute

 

icddr,b

 

IPGMER

 

University of Kelaniya

 

B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences