Arsenal of microfluidic testing devices may combat COVID-19 pandemic
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Arsenal of microfluidic testing devices may combat COVID-19 pandemic By José Alvim Berkenbrock, Rafaela Grecco-Machado, and Sven Achenbach
COVID-19
The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes the disease COVID-19 is responsible for the most severe worldwide virus outbreak in recent history. The first cases of COVID-19 were registered in China in December 2019, and it has since rapidly spread around the globe. Many scientists and physicians have been working to identify this new virus and to fight the infection. The high number of cases around the world led the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a pandemic situation on March 11, 2020. Although viruses have a variety of arrangements and compositions, they are generally composed of
genetic material (DNA or RNA), a protein shell, and a lipid bilayer. Detection approaches focus either on the proteins that form the shell or on the genetic material and its sequence of nucleotides, the building blocks of DNA and RNA. The first publications on SARSCoV-2 identified it as an RNA-based virus of the order Nidovirales, the family Coronaviridae, and the genus Betacoronavirus. Although many coronavirus infections in humans cause only mild symptoms, SARS-CoV-2 was determined to be similar to other aggressive strains, such as the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and
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the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). The similarities among SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV, and MERS-CoV provided scientists with a strong indication of where to start working. Even before samples from patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 became available, Christian Drosten, director at the Institute of Virology at Berlin’s Charité University Hospital, together with an international research group, published a WHO-endorsed diagnostic protocol for SARS-CoV-2 based on its similarities to other viruses.1 Currently, new information about SARSCoV-2 continues to be published daily. To date, the most effective measures to contain the spread of SARS-CoV-2 have been social distancing, testing widely, isolating and closely monitoring infected patients, and tracing the people who had contact with them (See Figures 1 and 2).
Benchtop assays slow to test for COVID-19
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Figure 1. The use of microfluidic devices for the detection and manipulation of viruses. SARSCoV-2, represented on the lower-left corner, can potentially be detected by microfluidic devices. Antibodies and primers are elements commonly used for the detection of target elements in samples. Microfluidic devices rely on well-established methods for analyzing samples, including genetic amplification (bands in an electrophoretic gel), analysis of impedance, and detection by translocation events is based on pulses in the electric current due to partial and non-permanent obstruction of nanopores. Credit: José Alvim Berkenbrock.
Testing is key to identifying infected individuals so they can be isolated and treated and so that deaths related to
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