KU Researchers developing quick turnaround COVID-19 Test

Steven Soper, a KU Foundation Distinguished Professor with appointments in both the School of Engineering and Department of Chemistry is leading an effort to develop a quick-turnaround COVID-19 test that can be used at home. Soper’s team, which includes a half-dozen graduate students in bioengineering and chemistry, is repurposing “lab on a chip” technology he had previously developed to give doctors simple tools to more easily and quickly diagnose conditions ranging from stroke to colon cancer.

The test uses a small plastic chip — about 38 by 42 millimeters — that contains 1.5 million tiny pillars, just 10 microns wide and 50 microns tall. Each pillar contains a piece of ribonucleic acid that “recognizes” a protein found in the COVID-19 virus particle.

“You take a saliva sample, you put it in the chip, and the chip does the processing,” Soper said. The whole process, including results, should take around 15 minutes. Current tests — including one used by KU — involve multiple steps, require a trained operator to implement the test and need an hour or two before results are available.

The next step in the process is to conduct clinical trials of the test between now and the end of the year in order to obtain approval from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration for widespread use. Once that happens, Soper said, “It’s a matter of manufacturing and getting it out to the market.”

Read the full article from Kansas University here.