COVID-19- US researcher develop low-cost sensor that rapidly detects
In ray of hope to identify asymptomatic people, researchers in the US have developed a new test with a low-cost sensor that may enable the at-home diagnosis of a Covid infection through rapid analysis of small volumes of saliva or blood, without the involvement of a medical professional, in less than 10 minutes.
When attached to supporting
electronics, the sensor can wirelessly transmit data to the user's cell phone
through Bluetooth technology. A crucial part of the global effort to stem the
spread of the pandemic is the development of tests that can rapidly identify
infections in people who are not yet symptomatic.
The team at California Institute of technology developed this multiplexed test (a test that combines multiple kinds of data) with a low-cost sensor developed in the lab of Wei Gao, assistant professor in the Andrew and Peggy Cherng department of medical engineering.
Named 'SARS-CoV-2 RapidPlex,' the
sensor contains antibodies and proteins that allow it to detect the presence of
the virus itself, antibodies created by the body to fight the virus, and
chemical markers of inflammation, which indicate the severity of the Covid-19
infection. "This is the only telemedicine platform I've seen that can give
information about the infection in three types of data with a single
sensor," Gao said in a paper published online and will appear in the
December issue of the journal Matter.
"In as little as a few minutes, we can simultaneously check these levels, so we get a full picture about the infection, including early infection, immunity, and severity".
Established Covid-testing technologies usually take hours or even days to produce results.
Those
technologies also require expensive, complicated equipment, whereas Gao's
system is simple and compact. So far, the device has been tested only in the
lab with a small number of blood and saliva samples obtained for medical
research purposes from individuals who have tested positive or negative for
Covid-19.
Though preliminary results indicate that the sensor is highly accurate, "a
larger-scale test with real-world patients rather than laboratory samples must
be performed, Gao cautions, to definitively determine its accuracy".