Design and development of an at-home COVID-19 detection kit with custom-engineered microbial sensors

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The overall goal of this study is to develop an at-home COVID-19 diagnostic test using custom-engineered microbial sensors. Current COVID-19 detection techniques require labor-intensive and resource-draining methodologies that rely on purification of viral genetic material followed by genetic sequence amplification and detection on highly specialized instruments. Although this approach is highly specific and sensitive, the bottleneck and delays required to get samples to accredited labs that can perform such technical experiments can cause multi-day delays. To date, studies developing alternate COVID-19 detection techniques are focusing on RNA/DNA methodologies or antibody based viral particle detection. Our proposed technology will introduce a completely novel approach to infectious pathogen detection. Here, we propose a novel approach of custom-engineering eco-friendly microorganisms designed to detect COVID-19 infections. We plan to engineer these microbes with biological sensors that are highly specific and sensitive for COVID-19. The simplicity of our design lies in the natural exponential growth capacity of these engineered microbes. Essentially, incubation of swab samples with our engineered microbial strains will be sufficient for analysis. The readout of this novel assay will be simply the absence or presence of culture growth. Our radical approach to COVID-19 detection will serve as a new frontier in the field of diagnostic assays for infectious diseases.