For more than 30 years, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has been the gold standard in molecular diagnostic testing, detecting genetic material, such as those from a virus or from human DNA. But PCR, including reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), is mostly done at large, centralized laboratories, not in point-of-care (POC) settings, because its instrumentation is bulky, expensive, takes a long time for results, and requires trained technicians to run it. These limitations have led to a shortage of accurate POC diagnostics as well as bottlenecks in test results, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
