LABEL-FREE PIEZOELECTRIC PLATFORM FOR RAPID POINT-OF-CARE DETECTION OF SARS-COV-2

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic persists, with spreading mutations causing severe illness. Point-of-care detection for COVID-19 remains crucial as it enables swift on-site testing and immediate results, facilitating timely diagnosis and decision-making in patient management. Enabling early identification of infected individuals, point-of-care COVID-19 detection supports effective containment measures, reduces transmission rates, and plays a vital role in outbreak prevention. In this work, we present a cell-enabled and handheld, cost-effective, label-free, acoustic platform and related sample preparation workflow for detecting SARS-CoV-2. The core technology utilizes Thickness shear mode (TSM) resonators with a sensitivity of 4.4 ng/(cm²·Hz) for biosensing applications in fluid. Our approach involves the development of stable poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) on gold, a highly selective, chemistry specific to SARS-CoV-2. We conducted cross-reactivity testing, comparing the platform's response to Influenza-type A, a structurally similar virus to SARS-CoV-2, which showed minimal to no reactivity. The specificity and sensitivity of our assay platform were evaluated using dilutions of Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA) protein and lysed viral heat-inactivated SARS-CoV-2 virus samples at various sample concentrations. All in all, our research demonstrates a highly specific and sensitive point-of-care platform for rapid detection of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, targeting the viral nucleocapsid protein at clinically relevant concentrations. The platform has the potential to play a vital role in ongoing surveillance efforts and enables healthcare systems to respond swiftly to emerging cases, ensuring timely intervention and disease control.