The impact of infectious disease on resource poor areas of the world is devastating. It is unlikely that the financial climate surrounding drug development for diseases prevalent in third world countries will soon change. Our best approach at dealing with some of these diseases will be prevention efforts assisted by the widespread availability of inexpensive and accurate diagnostics. Probes to amplify and identify microbial or viral nucleic acids are available for almost every well known disease vector. Assays for serum antibodies to many organisms are also well documented. Dedicated engineering of test protocols (patient sample preparation, dilutions, washing, blocking, and detection) and devices is required to move these technologies out of the research laboratory and into the field where they can have a more immediate impact on world health. We are focused on designing and prototyping disposable microfluidic platforms to enable molecular diagnostic testing using patient samples in locations far from a full service laboratory. Device design goals are low production costs, long shelf lives and relative ease of use. This talk will cover the formulation, fabrication and testing of microfluidic solid phase extraction columns based on polymer monoliths impregnated with nanoparticulate inclusions for protein and nucleic acid isolation from patient samples. Mammalian and bacterial cell lysis in microfluidic chips will be covered in addition to a discussion of strategies for micro and nanoscale enzyme linked immunosorbent assays. Practical concerns about the direct use of patient samples (blood, urine, saliva, and stool) will also be addressed.