This Tiny Device Tests for Current and Past COVID Infections
A group of Boston researchers have designed a postcard-sized test that can detect both a SARS-CoV-2 infection and the presence of antibodies as a result of recent infection—providing a two-in-one punch that can both diagnose active COVID cases (including specifying which variant is responsible), as well as how well protected someone might be from future infections, thanks to antibody levels. The researchers hope their new portable device, which tests a patient’s saliva sample within two hours within two hours, could be used as a valuable tool to help clamp down on spikes in new cases caused by the emergence of new variants over time. Preliminary findings from the device were published Monday in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.
“In the early days, everyone was working on developing diagnostics that could detect either the SARS-CoV-2 virus or antibodies against it, but not both,” said co-author Helena de Puig, a bioengineering researcher at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, in a press release. This new test, she added, is all-in-one.
The test combines two existing COVID technologies developed by Wyss Institute researchers. The first, a variant-specific diagnostic test detailed last August in a paper published in Science Advances, looks for RNA common to all coronavirus variants as well as segments specific to each one. The other test measures COVID antibodies by sandwiching them between two probes that create an electrical signal.