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

大流行可能对社会造成毁灭性影响：地方经济崩溃、贸易中断、国家安全受到削弱，医疗保健能力不堪重负。为防治传染性大流行，需要进行快速、有效的诊断检测，并结合接触者追踪和隔离。这将有助于官员控制感染，同时最大限度地减少疾病对经济、社会和医疗体系的影响。此外，对当地环境进行有效的哨点监测可以发现病毒的危险水平，防止大规模传播事件。不幸的是，2019冠状病毒病大流行暴露了卫生保健安全基础设施的一个严重弱点：我们缺乏进行快速、简单的即时诊断以及环境样本采集和检测的能力。这项研究的目标是开发廉价的、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。由于病毒通过呼吸中的飞沫传播，该系统有望从一分钟的呼吸中收集足够的样本，用于现有的测试单位。该技术基于连续滴状冷凝（CDC），能够在一分钟内有效地从加湿空气中提取颗粒（病毒）负荷。收集系统和配套仪器简单，可以很容易地与设计良好的患者界面集成，该界面是非侵入性的，与当前的rt-PCR采样兼容，并且可以廉价批量生产。此外，由于其表面收集方法，CDC可以很容易地修改为护理点，快速诊断测试或环境哨点采样/测试系统。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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。

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.