The current pandemic of Coronavirus (COVID-19) and its reoccurrence is a great threat to public health, the economy, and national security. To cope with this emergency, there is a need for a testing method that is rapid, accurate, and deployable in the field (doctor’s offices, hospitals, airports, etc.) at a large scale. Typically, a COVID-19 test takes several hours day as it involves sending the patient’s sample to a limited number of certified labs or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In addition, it is extremely alarming that the current capacity of COVID-19 testing is significantly lower than the desired capacity. To address this situation, this project proposes a transformative detection technique that enables rapid, portable, and direct electrical detection of COVID-19 RNA in less than ten minutes on a silicon chip test kit smaller than the size of an average human thumb with high sensitivity and specificity. These silicon chip test kits can be cost-effectively mass-produced using standard well-established CMOS technology. The success of this RAPID RAPID project will have a transformative impact in the present COVID-19 pandemic environment not only in U.S. but also globally.
The proposed technique offers detection of single COVID-19 RNA molecules directly and electrically in less than 10 minutes on a one square centimeter Si chip. A specific sequence T-oligo of 30-mer COVID-19 RNA will be used as the target molecule. Numerous single T-oligo molecules will be sandwiched between two Au functionalized metal nanoparticles. One metal nanoparticle will be in contact with a negative electrode and the other metal nanoparticle with a positive electrode, providing electrical paths between the two electrodes. A voltage bias between the two electrodes will produce an electrical current, thereby enabling direct electrical detection of single T-oligo molecule. This direct electrical detection of COVID-19 RNA will occur in a circular nanowell of ~100 nm diameter, which acts as an independent COVID-19 RNA detector. One COVID-19 test kit of one square centimeter will be made to accommodate two and half billion nanowell COVID-19 detectors. This enormous number of detectors on a single test kit enables a highly sensitive and rapid detection of single COVID-19 RNA molecules. Furthermore, RNA detection has been relying on time-consuming technique of reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). In the proposed approach single target RNA molecules will be directly detected without reverse transcription and PCR amplification reaction there by expending the test results with more sensitivity and specificity. The technique will have extended applications in other infectious diseases, fundamental biomedical research, pharmaceutical drug development, and early disease diagnosis.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
