A Rapid and Highly Sensitive On-site Detection Platform for COVID-19 Testing

用于 COVID-19 测试的快速、高灵敏度现场检测平台

• 批准号: 550114-2020
• 负责人: Cao, Xudong
• 金额: $ 3.63万
• 依托单位: University of Ottawa
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Alliance Grants
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2020-01-01 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=701543
• 关键词: Rapid; Highly; Sensitive; site; Detection

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused more than 2.4 million infections and more 166,000 deaths worldwide to date, and it is not showing any signs of slowing down. While public health workers are working around the clock to identify new cases of COVID-19 infections, a clear bottleneck - lack of fast tasting capacity to keep up with the rate of infection - has been severely exposed. This problem is exacerbated by emerging evidence suggesting that approximately 50% to 85% of COVID-19 patients, who are either asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic, are still able to transmit the virus and infect others undetected, making it even more difficult to keep track of the disease in order to contain it, an unfortunate situation that can only be described as "flying blind". The goal of the current Alliance COVID-19 application is to develop a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) based ultra-sensitive detection platform that will detect the presence of SARS-CoV-2 virus from swabbed samples without the need for any sample preparations. We expect that the test results can be available within 10 minutes. For this proposed detection platform to be successful, innovative designs to enhance detection sensitivity must be carefully considered. To this end, we propose to surface modify the SPR detection chip so that 1) the detection surface is rendered nonfouling to reduce nonspecific bindings to minimize the background noise, and 2) the efficacy of the detection surface to capture target SARS-CoV-2 viruses is enhanced in order to increase detection signals. We expect that the test results can be available within 10 minutes with a limit of detection at about 10^4 viruses/mL, similar to that of the PCR. The estimated cost of the test is about $20/test.

迄今为止，COVID-19大流行已在全球造成240多万例感染和16.6万例死亡，而且没有显示出任何放缓的迹象。虽然公共卫生工作者正在昼夜不停地工作，以确定新的COVID-19感染病例，但一个明显的瓶颈——缺乏跟上感染率的快速品尝能力——已经严重暴露出来。新出现的证据表明，大约50%至85%的COVID-19患者，无论是无症状还是有症状前，仍然能够传播病毒并在未被发现的情况下感染他人，这使这一问题更加严重，这使得跟踪疾病以控制它变得更加困难，这种不幸的情况只能用“盲目飞行”来形容。