GE team to create sensors for virus
Scientists awarded NIH grant to aid in detection of COVID-19
General Electric scientists will be developing miniature sensors that can detect the COVID-19 virus nano-particles on surfaces, the company announced on Thursday.
GE’S research team has been awarded a 24-month National Institutes of Health grant from the Radx-rad program to create the sensors. The sensors are smaller than a fingertip and could potentially be integrated into mobile devices like smart phones and smart watches, according to a statement GE released Thursday.
“One of the first lines of defense against any virus is avoiding exposure, which is easier said than done when you can’t see it,” said Radislav Potyrailo, a principal scientist at GE
Research and principal investigator on the NIH project, in a statement. “Through our project with the NIH, we are developing a sensor small enough to embed in a mobile device that could detect the presence of the COVID-19 virus.”
Over the past decade, Potyrailo and the sensing team have developed sensing technologies that pack the capabilities of high end analytical instruments the size of microwave ovens that one would find in a lab into tiny sensors. The team will be drawing from this already established research to develop the COVID-19 micro sensors, according to a spokesman for the company.
“Our sensors are sort of like bloodhounds,” Potyrailo said in a statement. “We train them to detect a specific thing, and they are able to do that well without being thrown of the trail by something else.”