A monitor capable of detecting in real time, within about 5 minutes, any variant of the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus found inside a room. The tool – which in addition to COVID it could also be adapted to capture other respiratory viruses such as influenza, rhinovirus and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) – it was developed in the USA by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis (Wustl) who describe it on ‘Nature Communications‘.
According to the authors, it could be used in hospitals and other healthcare facilities, schools and public places. It is an economic and compact device, about 30 centimeters wide and 25 centimeters high – explain the inventors – with a flow rate of about one thousand liters of air per minute, among the highest possible. When it detects a live virus, the monitor lights up, alerting facility administrators of the need to increase airflow or circulation.
The system is the work of an interdisciplinary team of Wustl scientists from the McKelvey School of Engineering (Rajan Chakrabarty and Joseph Puthussery) and the School of Medicine (John Cirrito and Carla Yuede). Cirrito and Yuede previously developed a biosensor to detect amyloid-beta protein as a biomarker of Alzheimer’s, and wondered if it could be converted into a ‘COVID-detector’; they then contacted Chakrabarty who assembled a team with Puthussery and others, with experience building monitors to measure real-time air toxicity.
The antibody for beta-amyloid was thus exchanged with a nanobody that recognizes the Spike protein of Sars-CoV-2. Developed by David Brody, former Wustl School of Medicine, this key element of the new tool is inexpensive to make and easy to reproduce and modify, which makes it adaptable to different variants and other viruses. In the apartments of two COVID-positive patients, the monitor detected Sars-CoV-2 mRna in bedroom air samples and not in control samples.
And in a room where the COVID-19 virus had been aerosolized, the device was able to pick up different concentrations of Sars-CoV-2 in the air in just a few minutes. The researchers are now working to get it to market. “At the moment – underlines Cirrito – there is nothing that tells us how safe a room is. If you’re in a room with 100 people, you don’t want to find out 5 days later whether or not you might have gotten sick. With this device you can know in real time, or every 5 minutes, if there is a live virus”.
The scientist explains: “We are starting with Sars-CoV-2, but there are plans to also measure influenza viruses, RSVs, rhinoviruses and other pathogens that routinely infect people. In a hospital environment, the monitor could be used to detect staphylococcus or streptococcus, which cause all kinds of complications for patients”. This tool ensures “it could really have a major impact on people’s health.”
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