Researchers in the US have developed a new test ‘SARS-CoV-2 RapidPlex’ with a low-cost sensor that may enable the at-home diagnosis of a Covid infection through rapid analysis of small volumes of saliva or blood, without the involvement of a medical professional, in less than 10 minutes. 

This will help identify the asymptomatic patients, do not show any signs of infection but are carrier of the virus, said the researchers citing importance of the test.

A crucial part of the global effort to stem the spread of the pandemic, therefore, is the development of tests that can rapidly identify infections in people who are not yet symptomatic.

The research was conducted in the lab of Wei Gao, assistant professor in the Andrew and Peggy Cherng department of medical engineering.

Gao’s sensors are made of graphene, a sheet-like form of carbon. A plastic sheet etched with a laser generates a 3D graphene structure with tiny pores.

Those pores create a large amount of surface area on the sensor, which makes it sensitive enough to detect, with high accuracy, compounds that are only present in very small amounts. In this sensor, the graphene structures are coupled with antibodies, immune system molecules that are sensitive to specific proteins, like those on the surface of a Covid virus, for example.

Though preliminary results indicate that the sensor is highly accurate, a larger-scale test with real-world patients rather than laboratory samples must be performed, Gao cautions, to definitively determine its accuracy.

“Our ultimate aim really is home use,” he said.

“In the following year, we plan to mail them to high-risk individuals for at-home testing. And in the future, this platform could be modified for other types of infectious disease testing at home.”