RAPID: Collaborative Research: Low-Cost, Non-invasive, Fast Sample Collection System for COVID-19 Viral Load Level Diagnosis: Point-of-Care and Environmental Testing

大流行病可能对社会产生破坏性影响：当地经济崩溃，贸易中断，国家安全削弱，医疗保健能力不堪重负。为了防治传染性大流行病，需要将快速、有效的诊断检测与接触者追踪和检疫相结合。这将有助于官员管理感染，同时最大限度地减少疾病对经济，社会和医疗保健系统的影响。此外，对当地环境进行有效的哨点监测可以发现危险水平的病毒的存在，防止大规模传播事件。不幸的是，COVID-19大流行暴露了卫生保健安全基础设施的一个关键弱点：我们缺乏进行快速、简单、即时诊断和环境样本收集和检测的能力。这项研究的目标是开发廉价，可大规模部署的快速诊断和哨兵系统，用于检测呼吸道疾病和空气传播的病毒威胁。由于病毒是通过呼吸中的飞沫传播的，预计该系统将从一分钟的呼吸中收集足够的样本，用于现有的检测单元。该技术基于连续滴状冷凝（CDC），能够在一分钟内有效地从加湿空气中提取颗粒（病毒）负载。收集系统和支持仪器是简单的，并且可以容易地与精心设计的患者接口集成，该患者接口是非侵入性的，与当前的rt-PCR采样兼容，并且可以廉价地大规模生产。此外，CDC，由于其表面收集方法，可以很容易地修改成一个即时的护理，快速诊断测试，或进入环境哨兵采样/测试系统。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

Pandemics can have a devastating impact on societies: collapsing local economies, halting trade, weakening national security and overwhelming healthcare capacity. To combat infectious pandemics, rapid, effective diagnostic testing combined with contact tracing and quarantine is needed. This will help officials manage infections while minimizing the effect of the disease on the economy, on society, and on our healthcare system. Further, effective sentinel monitoring of local environments can detect the presence of dangerous levels of virus, preventing mass spreading events. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed a critical weakness in health care security infrastructure: the deficiency in our ability to conduct rapid, simple, point-of-care diagnostic and environmental sample collection and testing. The goal in this research is to develop inexpensive, massively deployable rapid diagnostic and sentinel systems for detecting respiratory illness and airborne viral threats. Because the virus is transmitted through droplets in the breath, this system is expected to collect enough sample from one minute of breathing to be used in existing testing units. This technology is based on continuous dropwise condensation (CDC) which is capable of efficiently extracting particulate (viral) loads from humidified air within a minute. The collection system and supporting instrumentation is simple and can be readily integrated with a well-designed patient interface that is non-invasive, compatible with current rt-PCR sampling and which can be mass produced cheaply. Additionally, CDC, due to its surface collection method, can be modified readily into either a point-of-care, rapid diagnostic test, or into an environmental sentinel sampling/testing system.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.