RAPID: Collaborative Research: Low-Cost, Non-invasive, Fast Sample Collection System for COVID-19 Viral Load Level Diagnosis: Point-of-Care and Environmental Testing

流行病可能会对社会产生毁灭性的影响：当地经济崩溃，贸易停顿，国家安全遭到削弱，医疗保健能力不堪重负。为了抗击传染性大流行，需要结合接触者追踪和检疫的快速、有效的诊断检测。这将帮助官员管理感染，同时将疾病对经济、社会和我们医疗体系的影响降至最低。此外，对当地环境进行有效的哨点监测可以检测危险水平的病毒的存在，防止大规模传播事件。不幸的是，新冠肺炎大流行暴露了医疗安全基础设施中的一个严重弱点：我们缺乏进行快速、简单、定点诊断和环境样本收集和检测的能力。这项研究的目标是开发廉价、可大规模部署的快速诊断和哨兵系统，用于检测呼吸道疾病和空气传播的病毒威胁。由于病毒是通过呼吸中的飞沫传播的，该系统预计将从一分钟的呼吸中收集足够的样本，用于现有的检测单位。这项技术基于连续滴状冷凝(CDC)，能够在一分钟内有效地从加湿的空气中提取颗粒(病毒)负载。采集系统和辅助仪器非常简单，可以很容易地与精心设计的患者界面集成在一起，该界面是非侵入性的，与当前的RT-PCR采样兼容，并且可以廉价地批量生产。此外，CDC由于其表面收集方法，可以很容易地改装为护理点、快速诊断测试或环境哨兵采样/测试系统。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Pandemics can have a devastating impact on societies: collapsing local economies, halting trade, weakening national security and overwhelming healthcare capacity. To combat infectious pandemics, rapid, effective diagnostic testing combined with contact tracing and quarantine is needed. This will help officials manage infections while minimizing the effect of the disease on the economy, on society, and on our healthcare system. Further, effective sentinel monitoring of local environments can detect the presence of dangerous levels of virus, preventing mass spreading events. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed a critical weakness in health care security infrastructure: the deficiency in our ability to conduct rapid, simple, point-of-care diagnostic and environmental sample collection and testing. The goal in this research is to develop inexpensive, massively deployable rapid diagnostic and sentinel systems for detecting respiratory illness and airborne viral threats. Because the virus is transmitted through droplets in the breath, this system is expected to collect enough sample from one minute of breathing to be used in existing testing units. This technology is based on continuous dropwise condensation (CDC) which is capable of efficiently extracting particulate (viral) loads from humidified air within a minute. The collection system and supporting instrumentation is simple and can be readily integrated with a well-designed patient interface that is non-invasive, compatible with current rt-PCR sampling and which can be mass produced cheaply. Additionally, CDC, due to its surface collection method, can be modified readily into either a point-of-care, rapid diagnostic test, or into an environmental sentinel sampling/testing system.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.