As the BA.5 omicron variant continues to spread, health experts are increasingly preparing for a future in which such COVID-19 variants emerge, surge and recede similar to seasonal flu. An important part of staying on top of these changes will be the ability to quickly monitor the virus at a “population scale,” an effort that will require accurate and ultra-fast testing.

To help meet this challenge, researchers from the School of Science at IUPUI are developing a new biosensor with the potential to achieve the speed and efficiency required for the future of COVID-19 testing.

The work was recently reported in Applied Material Interfaces, a journal of the American Chemical Society. It is led by Rajesh Sardar, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology in the School of Science, and Adrianna Masterson, a graduate student in Sardar’s lab at the time of the study.

“Everyone is chasing high-throughput testing; this type of high-speed analysis is essential to the future of the fight against COVID-19,” Sardar said. “There are many advantages to our technology in particular: It’s fast, efficient, accurate and unprecedentedly sensitive.”

In terms of speed, the COVID-19 test from Sardar’s lab can currently analyze samples from 96 individuals in under three hours, he said. In terms of efficiently, the system requires only 10 microliters of blood.

By comparison, a typical blood panel order by a primary-care physician collects 10 milliliters of blood — more than 1,000 times more.

Source: Read Full Article