Engineers create face mask that detects COVID-19 within 90 minutes [Video]

• Harvard and MIT engineers have created a face mask that can detect if its wearer has COVID-19 within 90 minutes.
• Tiny, disposable biosensors embedded in the button-activated masks analyze the accumulated breath droplets inside the mask.
• Preliminary tests showed that the test is as accurate as PCR tests while offering “the speed and low cost of antigen tests.”

A novel face mask developed by engineers from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has the ability to detect COVID-19 within 90 minutes.

Tiny, disposable biosensors are embedded in the button-activated masks.

Molecular machinery that can detect pathogens and toxins is extracted and freeze-dried, resulting in wearable freeze-dried cell-free (wFDCF) technology. This is the same technology previously used to design experimental diagnostic tools for the Ebola and Zika viruses.

Study co-first author Peter Nguyen explained that previous wearable sensors used techniques that “required putting living cells into the wearable itself as if the user were wearing a tiny aquarium. If that aquarium ever broke, then the engineered bugs could leak out onto the wearer, and nobody likes that idea.”

The face mask they created has a small water reservoir that is released at a push of a button. The liquid then hydrates the freeze-dried components of the SARS-CoV-2 sensor, which then analyzes accumulated breath droplets inside the mask. A result is produced within 90 minutes.

Nguyen explained, “We have essentially shrunk an entire diagnostic laboratory down into a small, synthetic biology-based sensor that works with any face mask and combines the high accuracy of PCR tests with the speed and low cost of antigen tests.”

Premilinary tests have shown that the face masks’ accuracy is comparable to standard nucleic acid-based diagnostic tests like polymerase chain reactions (PCR), which is the gold standard for SARS-CoV-2 detection.

So far, the face mask is the most market-ready product they have developed. But since the sensor is small enough to be integrated into clothing fabrics, it can also be embedded in lab coats, scrubs, and other uniforms.

Co-author Nina Donghia, a staff scientist at the Wyss Institute, said that this can be helpful for scientists, doctors, nurses, first responders, military officers, and other personnel who are working with or constantly exposed to “hazardous materials or pathogens.”

The engineers are now looking for manufacturing partners to help mass-produce the face mask and other integrated products.

Source: Inceptive Mind