Development of a Point-of-Care Diagnostic Test Strip for at Home Diagnosis of COVID-19

新冠肺炎引发了一场前所未有的全球健康危机。现有检测的短缺和这些检测所需的繁琐过程阻碍了追踪疾病和及时隔离感染者。拟议中的项目旨在为新冠肺炎开发一种高精度、快速和负担得起的测试。对有症状和无症状的人进行广泛和立即的检测对于有效执行遏制政策至关重要。还迫切需要快速的低成本检测，以确保医疗资源可以根据感染率适当地分配到地理区域。高危群体，特别是土著社区和生活在农村地区的人口特别容易受到伤害，因为他们获得医疗中心的机会有限。基于一种检测普通感冒的方法，我们的目标是开发一种测试试纸，其中包含与病毒结合时具有独特反应的颗粒。这些反应可以用一种低成本的技术来检测。该项目将通过开发用于家庭诊断的诊断试纸，促进新冠肺炎的广泛检测。该团队将与行业合作伙伴BioMedica Diagnostics的专家就项目的每一步进行合作，这将确保开发出一种适合大规模制造和商业化的诊断方法。该项目的成功完成将推动医疗保健点诊断领域的尖端技术，并为新冠肺炎检测提供实用高效的解决方案。

COVID-19 has resulted in an unprecedented global health crisis. The shortage of available testing and the cumbersome process these tests entail has hampered tracking the disease and timely isolation of infected individuals. The proposed project aims to develop a highly accurate, fast and affordable test for the COVID-19. Extensive and immediate testing of symptomatic and asymptomatic people is critical for effective implementation of containment policies. Rapid low-cost testing is also urgently needed to ensure that medical resources can be appropriately apportioned to geographic regions based on infection rates. The high risk groups, especially indigenous communities and the population living in rural areas are particularly vulnerable as their access to medical centers is limited. Based on a method developed to detect the common cold, we aim to develop the test strip that contains particles which have unique responses when bound to the virus. These responses can be detected with a low-cost technology. This project will facilitate widespread testing for COVID-19 by developing diagnostic test strip for at home diagnosis. The team will collaborate on each step of the project with experts from industry partner BioMedica Diagnostics, which will ensure the development of a diagnostic method that is suitable for large scale manufacturing and commercialization. Successful completion of the project will advance the state of the art in the field of point-of-care diagnostic, and provide practical and efficient solutions for COVID-19 testing.