RAPID: Plasmonically-enhanced Detection of Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19)

2019年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）是一种高度传染性的大流行性疾病，已迅速蔓延至全球数十万人，并造成多人死亡。为了促进对病毒传播的监测和控制，圣路易斯华盛顿大学的Singamaneni教授旨在开发一种快速、低成本的诊断方法，可以检测出无症状或表现出轻微症状的个体的感染。 这种灵敏的生物传感方法旨在以高通量的方式快速评估大量人群对冠状病毒的免疫反应，并使人们能够了解这种高度传染性疾病的流行病学。这种新型生物传感器适用于护理点和资源有限的环境，可以很容易地适应广泛的公共卫生威胁。该研究项目为研究生提供了在传感器设计和传感器性能研究方面进行培训的机会。本课题的目的是设计并实现一种基于等离子体增强荧光的双模式侧流检测方法，用于高灵敏度和特异性地检测SARS冠状病毒（SARS-CoV-2）IgG和IgM抗体。 具体而言，双模式侧向流测定依赖于等离子体荧光，一种超亮荧光纳米结构，以实现高灵敏度和低检测限。除了超亮荧光信号之外，等离子体荧光剂还表现出大的吸收和散射截面，使它们成为有吸引力的标记物，可以在高目标浓度下通过肉眼直接可视化。 该双模式侧流检测能够以简单的比色信号同时检测相对高浓度的抗体，并通过高灵敏度的荧光信号同时检测低浓度的抗体。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a highly contagious, pandemic disease that has rapidly spread to several hundred thousand people worldwide and caused many deaths. To facilitate the surveillance and control of the spread of the virus, Prof. Singamaneni of Washington University at St. Louis aims to develop a rapid and low-cost diagnostic method that can detect infection in individuals that are asymptomatic or exhibiting mild symptoms. The sensitive biosensing method is designed to rapidly assess the immune response to the coronavirus across a large population in a high-throughput manner and to enable understanding of the epidemiology of the highly contagious disease. The novel biosensor is suitable for point-of-care and resource-limited settings and can be easily adapted to a broad range of public health threats. This research project provides opportunities to graduate students to be trained in sensor design and the study of sensor performance. The aim of this project is to design and realize a dual-modal lateral flow assay for highly sensitive and specific detection of IgG and IgM antibodies to coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) using plasmon-enhanced fluorescence. Specifically, the dual-modal lateral flow assay relies on plasmonic-fluor, an ultrabright fluorescent nanostructure, to achieve high sensitivity and low detection limit. In addition to ultrabright fluorescence signal, plasmonic-fluors exhibit large absorption and scattering cross-section, making them attractive labels that can be directly visualized by naked eye at high target concentrations. This dual-modal lateral flow assay enables simultaneous detection of relatively high concentrations of the antibodies as a simple colorimetric signal and low concentrations of the antibodies through highly sensitive fluorescence signal.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.