CF1 dipstick pads
Light and thin 100% cotton linter material (176 µm thickness at 53 kPA) for small sample volumes.
Critical components for dipstick colorimetric assays
Dipstick colorimetric assays, also referred to as dry chemistry assays, are a diagnostic test in which a cellulose pad is impregnated with a color reagent, and are widely used in everything from urine testing to environmental assays. The base cellulose is a key part of the system, and the correct choice of absorbency, wicking rate, and wet strength are critical to producing a working assay.
Advantages of dipstick assays
- Basic, single layer, dipstick assays are simple to use and require no sample prep or optical readout.
- Total assay response time is within minutes
- Very sensitive assays with as little as a few hundred microliters of sample liquid
- Easy to multiplex and commonly done in medical diagnostics
Challenges with dipstick assays
- Complex, multilayer or multiplexed dipstick assays require skilled users to administer the test and read results
- Requires a liquid sample such as urine, blood or water and is unlikely to convert solid samples to liquid
- Developmentally complex – multistep reactions require multiple pads that cascade into each other
- Stacked pad assays are tricky to read as the results show on the bottom of the pad which is adhered to plastic dipstick.
Diagnostic Services
Helping you build and accelerate the development of smarter molecular and immunodiagnostic assays
Development of molecular assays for POC environments
Components and services to support molecular assay development in point-of-care settings
Immunodiagnostics in the laboratory environment
Antibody, protein enrichment and purification technologies to facilitate immunoassays
