Advancing In-Flight Medical Diagnostics: The APHRODITE Lab-On-Chip System for Biomarker Analysis Abroad the International Space Station.

Addressing the context, the system reliability analysis for APHRODITE mission have been done in order to ensure its functionality for the autonomous and real-time analysis on board the ISS. Moreover, this paper emphasizes the magnet complex actuation subsystem in the system overview section. APHRODITE core system consists of a lab-on-chip (LoC) with integrated thin-film sensors in hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) able to host dual-analytes competitive chemiluminescence (CL) immunoassay. APHRODITE’s design allows for ultra- sensitive quantification of these target biomarkers present in sub-molar quantities, using a non- invasive approach. The core technical innovation of APHRODITE lies in functionalized magnetic microbeads that enable parallel multi-analyte tests and multiple subsequent runs on different samples upon a inline washing protocol. This design leverages immunoassays, making it ideal for detecting analytes in small volumes of complex matrices, even at low concentration.