U of W researchers developing microchip device to detect COVID-19
University of Windsor researchers working on a portable microchip device to detect COVID-19 say it could revolutionize testing for the virus.
Professors Jalal Ahamed, Mitra Mirhassani, Simon RondeauGagne and Yufeng Tong have partnered with APAG Elektronik Corp.’s Windsor facility to develop a device that they hope will quickly provide highly accurate test results for the coronavirus.
The compact device — also referred to as a Lab-on-a-chip — is in the development stage but Ahamed said the team’s goal is to produce a mobile device that is very accurate and at a very low cost.
“These type of devices can give you an indication of infection very fast and widely because these kind of devices would be, down the road, cheaper and accessible and at the same time not compromising accuracy,” Ahamed said. “Then whenever there is infection, you’d know that and can contain that.
“So that is the goal of all of us that are doing this research on these type of devices, is to get the testing more widely accessible.”
Ahamed said the team began brainstorming early in the pandemic, talking about how they could tailor their expertise to help and came up with the idea to re-engineer some of the technologies and innovations they had and employ them for COVID-19 detection.
“We’re looking to produce a small chip that can be hand held and that can be applied without lab settings,” he said, adding Lab-on-a-chip technology is already used around the world to test for malaria, dengue and other diseases.
Currently, swab samples for COVID-19 need to be sent to a lab where it can take days to process and receive results.
“In the Lab-on-a-chip, what we have been doing is we are trying to bring down the, say a conventional lab, into one chip where you can do all the sampling, analyzing, processing, et cetera,” Ahamed said.
“The ultimate goal is once you insert a swab then everything, all the chemicals and other that you’d need (are) transported inside the chip.”
The device will use electrical sensors to detect whether the virus is present in a swab sample and give results in minutes.
Ahamed explained that the COVID-19 virus has spikes, called spike proteins that bind into receptor proteins in the body. The device’s sensor, an electrical conductor that is coated with those receptor proteins, will produce an electrical signal when it comes into contact and binds with the virus.
Once they know they have the signal and it can distinguish between the protein of the virus and other proteins, the next phase is to test it with the actual virus, Ahamed said.
He said the partnership with APAG Elektronik, a Swiss firm that manufactures automotive electronics and lighting components, has been invaluable because they have access to materials that would have been challenging to get during the pandemic.
Funding has come from two grants — a $10,000 seed grant from the We-spark Institute, which is a research partnership between the university, St. Clair College, Windsor Regional Hospital and Hotel-dieu Grace Healthcare and $50,000 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.