News

This guide to lateral flow assay development explains how to improve assay sensitivity and reproducibility through antibody screening, membrane selection, conjugate optimisation, strip design and process control.

In this article, we explore how sample type and matrix effects influence lateral flow assay (LFA) performance, going beyond initial antibody selection and detector optimisation. Real-world samples such as whole blood, saliva, urine, swab extracts, and environmental matrices introduce variability, chemical interference, and flow challenges that can significantly impact sensitivity, specificity, and reproducibility.

Just as careful antibody selection is critical for Lateral Flow Assay (LFA) performance, the choice of detector label and its conjugation strategy directly influences assay sensitivity, specificity, reproducibility and scalability. Detector labels convert binding events into measurable signals and the way these labels are prepared and evaluated has a profound impact on how reliably an assay performs. Gold nanoparticles have become the most widely used detector because of thei