Overcoming the limitations of COVID-19 diagnostics with nanostructures, nucleic acid engineering, and additive manufacturing
Nantao Li, Bin Zhao, Robert Stavins, Ana Sol Peinetti, Neha Chauhan, Rashid Bashir, Brian T. Cunningham, William P. King, Yi Lu, Xing Wang, Enrique Valera
Current Opinion in Solid State and Materials Science 26 (2022) 100966
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed fundamental limitations in the current model for infectious disease diagnosis and serology, based upon complex assay workflows, laboratory-based instrumentation, and expensive materials for managing samples and reagents. The lengthy time delays required to obtain test results, the high cost of goldstandard PCR tests, and poor sensitivity of rapid point-of-care tests contributed directly to society’s inability to efficiently identify COVID-19-positive individuals for quarantine, which in turn continues to impact return to normal activities throughout the economy. Over the past year, enormous resources have been invested to develop more effective rapid tests and laboratory tests with greater throughput, yet the vast majority of engineering and chemistry approaches are merely incremental improvements to existing methods for nucleic acid amplification, lateral flow test strips, and enzymatic amplification assays for protein-based biomarkers. Meanwhile, widespread commercial availability of new test kits continues to be hampered by the cost and time required to develop single-use disposable microfluidic plastic cartridges manufactured by injection molding
