Paper-COVID - Platform for High-throughput SARS-CoV-2 Screening and Contact Tracing

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Abstract At present, most of the diagnostic testing for COVID-19 has been done through local sampling of those who are symptomatic followed by centralized laboratory testing – returning results in 3-4 days. This is now supplemented by several point-of-care (PoC) systems who can perform the same test on site, returning the result much quicker, but at much lower throughput. To return many elements of the US economy to closer to normal function, such as international air travel, large-scale employers, and campus-based institutes of higher learning, will require us to shift from diagnostic testing to large scale, distributed, and repeated screening of asymptomatic (or pre- symptomatic) individuals. The length of time-to-result for traditional centralized testing and the relatively low throughput of existing PoC systems will make this a challenge. Here we propose to develop Paper-COVID – a modular platform that combines a clinically validated LAMP assay (already with FDA EUA approval) with a mobile phone based paper testing platform that enables much higher throughput screening for asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 and facilitates automated contact tracing. The goal for this effort is to validate a novel sample processing technique, port the previously developed LAMP assay to a paper- based format, construct three modular prototype systems, and validate it on clinical samples from New York City.