Categories: Sci/Tech

Researchers Developing Smartphone COVID Test That Yields Results In Minutes

This will make testing "fast, accurate, and affordable," according to the researchers.

University of Arizona researchers are developing a technology that will allow people to get Covid test results in 10 minutes.
This new test uses a smartphone microscope to analyze saliva samples.
The promising technology aims to “provide fast, accurate, affordable tests,” according to UA President Robert C. Robbins.

A new technology aiming to make Covid testing simpler and easier is currently being developed by researchers from the University of Arizona. In fact, this will allow users to get test results in just a few minutes.

According to reports, the new test will utilize a smartphone microscope capable of examining saliva samples. Biomedical engineering professor and project team leaderJeong-Yeol Yoon explained that their goal is to achieve the speed of nasal swab antigen tests and the accuracy of nasal polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests.

Fast and accurate Covid detection

Katie Sosnowski, a biomedical engineering doctoral student who also works with Yoon, shared:

“I have a couple of friends who had COVID-19 that were super frustrated, because their PCR results were taking six or seven days or they were getting false negatives from rapid antigen tests. But when they got the final PCR tests, they found out they had been sick, like they’d suspected.
“It’s really cool to be working on a detection platform that can get fast results that are also accurate.”

“It’s extremely sensitive. It takes less than ten minutes,” pointed out University of Arizona Professor Dr. Kelly Reynolds. It can be compared to a pregnancy test but instead uses saliva samples plaecd in a microfluidic chip.

The technology is currently being fine-tuned and tested at testing facilities.

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Robert C. Robbins, President of the University of Arizona, likewise added:

“This promising technology could allow us to provide fast, accurate, affordable tests to the campus community frequently and easily. We hope to make it a regular part of our ‘Test, Trace, Treat’ strategy, and that it will have a broader impact in mitigating the spread of the disease.”