Developing a Rapid Do-It-Yourself Test for the Home-Based Diagnostics and Monitoring of COVID-19 Enabled by the Integration of Functional Nucleic Acids and Electrochemical Readout

通过功能核酸和电化学读数的集成，开发一种用于家庭诊断和监测 COVID-19 的快速自助测试

• 批准号: 552126-2020
• 负责人: Soleymani, Leyla
• 金额: $ 3.64万
• 依托单位: McMaster University
• 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=703421
• 关键词: Developing; Rapid; Do; Yourself; Test

This proposal is focused on developing a do-it-yourself (DIY) test for the home-based diagnostics and monitoring of COVID-19. The current gold standard techniques for diagnosing COVID-19 require nucleic acid amplification for detecting viral RNA. This step in viral detection makes it difficult to create a test that is inexpensive and portable enough for home based analysis. The existing home-based tests for COVID-19 do not directly detect the presence of the virus; instead, they sense the antibodies generated in their response (antibody tests), presenting poor performance especially in the early days of disease onset. In response to the urgent need for a DIY home test that can be used for wide-spread testing and contact tracing, we propose to create a handheld and inexpensive chip/reader system for COVID-19 analysis. This system will build on our previous work focused on detecting bacterial proteins to directly detect viral proteins specific to SARS-CoV-2. Synthetic DNA machines are used here to directly bind highly abundant viral proteins and generate an easy-to-detect DNA barcode, which can be analyzed using an electronic chip plugged into a handheld reader (a small dongle connected to smart phones). Technologies that enable home-based testing are expected to make a major impact in the fight against COVID-19 or other infectious disease pandemics in Canada and globally because they will allow for: (1) health care resources to be used more efficiently, (2) patients to be frequently monitored at home during quarantine or recovery, (3) testing to be applied at points of entry and remote areas, and (4) the overall testing capacity to be significantly increased. These tests are essential during the time following the peak of pandemics when economic activity is resumed. At that point, increased decentralized testing integrated with epidemiological surveillance will become essential for rapidly identifying and isolating infected individuals for avoiding future outbreaks.

这项建议的重点是开发一个自己动手(DIY)测试，用于新冠肺炎的家庭诊断和监测。目前诊断新冠肺炎的金标准技术需要核酸扩增来检测病毒核糖核酸。病毒检测的这一步使创建一种足够便宜和便携的测试以进行基于家庭的分析变得困难。现有的新冠肺炎家庭检测并不直接检测病毒的存在，而是检测其反应中产生的抗体(抗体检测)，表现较差，特别是在疾病发作的早期。针对人们对可用于广泛测试和接触追踪的DIY家用测试的迫切需求，我们提出了创建一种用于新冠肺炎分析的手持式、廉价的芯片/读写器系统。该系统将建立在我们之前专注于检测细菌蛋白的工作基础上，以直接检测SARS-CoV-2特异的病毒蛋白。这里使用合成DNA机器直接结合高度丰富的病毒蛋白，并生成易于检测的DNA条形码，可以使用插入手持阅读器(连接到智能手机的小型加密狗)中的电子芯片进行分析。实现家庭检测的技术预计将对加拿大和全球抗击新冠肺炎或其他传染病大流行的斗争产生重大影响，因为它们将允许：(1)更有效地利用医疗资源，(2)在隔离或康复期间在家中频繁监测患者，(3)在入境点和偏远地区应用检测，以及(4)显著提高整体检测能力。在流行病高峰期恢复经济活动期间，这些测试是必不可少的。在这一点上，加强分散检测与流行病学监测相结合，将成为快速识别和隔离感染者以避免未来暴发的关键。