SBIR Phase I: COVID-19 Detection on a Handheld Smartphone-Enabled Platform

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project is a handheld smartphone-enabled hardware platform for the rapid detection of COVID-19 in nasal swab samples. The proposed project will translate a portable smartphone enabled platform to detect COVID-19 in patient samples in 30-90 minutes in a standard clinical setting or in an even lower-resource facility. After diagnosis, data are immediately recorded and encrypted with geo-mapped and time-stamped for public health use. This novel and proactive approach for detection can enable communities to rapidly detect COVID-19 and monitor outbreak data to suppress disease spread. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project addresses the need to develop a rapid and portable COVID-19 point-of-care diagnostic. The scope of the Phase I project is to develop a robust nucleic acid assay to specifically and sensitively detect for COVID-19 in a handheld smartphone-enabled device. This project proposes an optimized nucleic acid amplification assay that is highly selective and rapid, while maintaining sensitivity, specificity, and a low false positive rate. Additionally, the project will test the optimized assay in the presence of nasopharyngeal (nasal) swabs and viral transport media, preparing a robust platform for clinical analysis of both fresh and stored samples. The project will integrate the assay into a sample-to-answer device for fast COVID-19 nucleic acid diagnosis.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.