Scientists Develop Method to Detect Deadly Infectious Diseases
Published:20 Oct.2023 Source:Rutgers University
The test, described in Science Advances, is an electronic sensor contained within a computer chip. It employs nanoballs -- microscopic spherical clumps made of tinier particles of genetic material, each of those with diameters 1,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair -- and combines that technology with advanced electronics.
"During the COVID pandemic, one of the things that didn't exist but could have stemmed the spread of the virus was a low-cost diagnostic that could flag people known as the 'quiet infected' -- patients who don't know they are infected because they are not exhibiting symptoms," said Mehdi Javanmard, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the Rutgers School of Engineering and an author of the study. "In a pandemic, pinpointing an infection early with accuracy is the Holy Grail. Because once a person is showing symptoms -- sneezing and coughing -- it's too late. That person has probably infected 20 people."
For the past 20 years, Javanmard has been developing biosensors -- devices that monitor and transmit information about a life process. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he became disheartened about the extent of infections and the extreme loss of life. He believed there had to be a way of using biosensors as a test to detect illness earlier.
Working with Muhammad Tayyab, a Rutgers doctoral student and co-author of the study, Javanmard and research colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and Stanford and Yale universities started brainstorming.