Magnetic levitation system for culture-independent virus isolation from biological and environmental samples

病毒一直在进化，而RNA病毒尤其擅长于此。偶尔，当有一个幸运的突变组合时，一种新的毒株就会进化出来，它与我们免疫系统所习惯的毒株截然不同。当新菌株具有有效的人际传播性时，特别是由于呼吸道传播模式，就会发生大流行，当缺乏有效或广泛可用的医学对策时，会导致可观的病死率。这些都是2019冠状病毒病的特征，它于2019年12月下旬首先在中国武汉开始，然后迅速蔓延到世界各地，导致其于2020年3月被世界卫生组织确定为全球大流行病。现在我们都知道什么是病毒了！ 科学家们已经预计COVID-19大流行将分多波发生，每一波都会在几周内席卷地球仪，持续长达三个月。目前，由于技术限制，在爆发前分离和鉴定COVID-19的病原体几乎是不可能的。为了解决这一技术差距，我们的目标是：开发一种新的不依赖培养的技术（基于模拟和实验方法），以更快，更有效地从不同的环境或生物样品类型中分离病毒颗粒。我们的目标还包括数学模拟所开发系统的灵敏度和有效性，以便该系统将来可以适应任何其他类型的病毒。

Viruses are evolving all the time and RNA viruses are particularly good at it. Once in a while, when there is a lucky combination of mutations, a new strain evolves that is very different from those that our immune systems are used to. Pandemic happens when the new strain has efficient human to human transmissibility, especially due to respiratory mode of spread, leading to appreciable case fatality rates when there is absence of an effective or widely available medical countermeasure. These are all characteristics of COVID-19, first started in Wuhan, China in late December 2019, and then rapidly spread around the world, leading to its identification as a global pandemic in March 2020 by the World Health Organization. Now we all know what going viral means! Scientists are already expecting the COVID-19 pandemic to occur in multiple waves, with each wave sweeping across the globe in a matter of weeks and lasting as long as three months. Currently, because of technical limitations, isolation and identification of causative agent of COVID-19 before the start of outbreak is nearly impossible. To address this technological gap, here we aim to: Develop a new culture-independent technology (based on both simulation and experimental approaches) for faster and more efficient isolation of viral particles from different environmental or biological sample types. We also aim to mathematically simulate the sensitivity and validity of the developed system, so that the system can be adapted to any other type of viruses in the future.