Phase II year
2021
(last award dollars: 1685360651)
Phase II Amount
$1,000,000
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical need for detectors for aerosolized pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2. While point-of-care (POC) diagnostics (e.g., portable molecular or immunoassay tests) for infection have helped increase the number of people tested for COVID-19, it would be highly advantageous to detect the virus before it infects an individual, while it is still airborne. Early detection can help control outbreaks; however, no rapidly deployable detectors for airborne SARS-CoV-2 currently exist. We propose to develop a sensitive and specific bioaerosol detection platform (collector + sensor) that can identify airborne SARS-CoV-2 in under 1 hour from air sample to answer. By sampling ambient air, the instrument will make it possible to surveille large venues (e.g., mass transit stations, gyms, military barracks) to warn people of the potential for virus exposure. This is a critical advance since common screening tools (e.g., measuring individual body temperatures) miss the large number of asymptomatic people spreading the virus. The front-end of the instrument will incorporate condensation growth tube (CGT) technology, developed by Aerosol Devices Inc, to gently collect and concentrate nearly all virus particles from <10 nm to 10 ?m. A major advantage of CGT over existing bioaerosol samplers is that the CGT collection method does not damage the viruses, which makes it uniquely suited to monitoring airborne virus viability. In operation, half of the sampled particles will be transferred to a paper-based sensor, developed at the University of Florida, where reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification will be used to detect SARS-CoV-2. The other half of the particle sample will be stored in a small collection vial and preserved so that the virus can be cultured for viability in a laboratory. Independently, the collector and the sensor technologies are reasonably mature (with commercial sales and patents on the collector and a pending patent on the detector), which reduces the risk of synthesizing an integrated platform from them. Initially, the RT-LAMP assay will provide a binary response (positive or negative) to virus samples. During the Option period we will expand the instrumentÂ’s capabilities so that it can report the concentration of virus in the ambient air. Our immediate focus is SARS-CoV-2, but the platform could be adapted in future efforts to detect other airborne viruses (e.g., Influenza A/B, measles) and bacteria (e.g., B. pertussis, B. anthracis).
