SBIR Phase I: Development of a Low-cost, Scalable Sampler for Airborne COVID-19 Virus Detection

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发一种准确，强大的工具，用于对空气中的病毒，细菌，真菌和其他生物气溶胶进行采样。 现有采样技术的主要缺陷限制了其在抗击COVID-19大流行方面的广泛用途，而拟议的技术可以为大流行缓解工作提供大量信息。 拟议仪器的客户包括公共卫生专业人员，流行病学家，研究传染性和过敏性空气传播疾病的医学研究人员，国土安全和军事，工业卫生学家，研究建筑和自然环境微生物组的空气生物学家，以及室内空气质量调查人员。 这项技术的应用范围将超越当前的COVID-19疫情。 SBIR第一阶段项目提出开发一种急需的诊断工具，用于调查引起COVID-19的SARS-CoV-2病毒是否存在并作为气溶胶传播，包括亚微米颗粒。 现有的空气采样器在捕获小于1微米的颗粒方面效率极低，并且采样本身会损坏细胞壁并破坏基因组材料。 该技术具有独特的冷凝生长管（CGT），可以收集和浓缩几乎所有空气中5 nm-10µm的颗粒，并立即保存DNA/RNA，使其在采样气溶胶病毒以进行基因组恢复时更加有效。 然而，传统的CGT采样器太大、太贵，并且难以操作用于广泛的COVID-19监测。 该SBIR项目将加速开发一种简单、低成本、可扩展的病毒采样器，供受过最少培训的技术人员广泛部署。 该项目将制造几个原型，并在实验室和在关键室内位置（如医疗设施、疗养院和/或公共交通）采样SARS-CoV-2空气颗粒方面证明其有效性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is the development of an accurate, robust tool for sampling airborne viruses, bacteria, fungi and other bioaerosols. Major deficiencies with existing sampling technologies limit their broad utility in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, and the proposed technology could substantially inform pandemic mitigation efforts. Customers for the proposed instrumentation include public health professionals, epidemiologists, medical researchers studying infectious and allergenic airborne diseases, homeland security and the military, industrial hygienists, aerobiologists studying the microbiome of the built and natural environment, and indoor air quality investigators. This technology will have applications beyond the current COVID-19 pandemic. This SBIR Phase I project proposes to develop an urgently needed diagnostic tool for investigating whether SARS-CoV-2 , the virus that causes COVID-19, is present and transmitted as an aerosol, including as submicron particles. Existing air samplers are grossly inefficient in capturing particles smaller than 1 micrometer, and the sampling itself can damage the cellular walls and destroy genomic material. The technology proposed has a unique condensation growth tube (CGT) that collects and concentrates virtually all airborne particles from 5nm-10µm and instantly preserves the DNA/RNA, making it vastly more effective at sampling aerosolized viruses for genomic recovery. However, conventional CGT samplers are too large, expensive, and difficult to operate for widespread COVID-19 monitoring. This SBIR project will accelerate development of a simple, low-cost, scalable virus sampler for broad deployment by minimally-trained technicians. The project will fabricate several prototypes and demonstrate their efficacy both in the laboratory and in sampling airborne SARS-CoV-2 particles in key indoor locations such as medical facilities, nursing homes and/or public transportation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.