Developing Multiplexed COVID-19 Diagnostic Methods for Medical Surveillance

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COVID-19 is a highly contagious disease that poses a challenge in medical diagnosis. Rapid, accurate and portable devices are urgently needed to increase medical surveillance capability, providing point-of-care testing. Detection of COVID-19 antibodies can complement the existing techniques and provide diagnosis and population surveillance. Invention of portable glucose meters in the 1960s, followed by subsequent innovations, enabled effective analysis of blood glucose in diabetic patients without the requirement for laboratory equipment or expertise. This allowed rapid, accurate and portable analytical methodology outside of medical laboratories. Glucose meters are now readily available to the public from retail stores and the availability of the testing is sufficient to meet demand. However, this is not the case for detecting COVID-19. COVID-19 samples collected from patients can only be analyzed by medical professionals in medical laboratory settings. The objectives of this project are to develop a more portable and automated COVID-19 diagnostic methodology requiring minimum operational expertise, provide medical diagnosis and empower resource-poor communities.