A novel assay and a suite of devices may isolate nucleic acids from prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells and prepare samples for real-time (quantitative) polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis. The assay may employ an aqueous-based non-alcohol approach that yields robust RNA quality. The suite of ready-to-use devices may provide pre-loaded reagents in liquid and lyophilized formats to enable rapid manual operation in a laboratory or remote field environments. The assay and devices may be particularly suitable to analysis in microgravity or deep space environments.