MIT researchers have developed a quantum sensor to detect SARS-CoV-2. Although the device is still theoretical, the researchers used mathematical simulations to demonstrate its potential, and the data and design suggest that it may be faster, more accurate, and less expensive than the current gold standard technique, PCR. The system is based on nanodiamonds to which viral RNA binds, which causes a change in the magnetic properties of the system and a measurable change in fluorescence.
It looks like COVID-19 will stay here, and unless the virus mutates to become significantly less harmful, or we develop new treatments that largely negate its harmful effects on everyone, so will COVID-19 Tests remain. Rapid lateral flow tests have been useful for giving a quick response to the status of infection, but they are not very accurate.
The sensor only uses inexpensive materials (the diamonds involved are smaller than grains of dust), and the devices could be scaled up to analyze an entire batch of samples at once, the researchers say.
PCR is the current gold standard test method, but it is inconvenient, time consuming and expensive. It also does not provide a quantitative measure of the amount of virus present in a sample and can potentially suffer from false negative rates in excess of 25%.
There is clear room for improvement here. So these researchers set out to develop a sensor that would address many of these problems by using mathematical models to test whether their design had potential. Their proposed technology consists of nanodiamonds, which contain small defects called nitrogen vacancy centers. An entire nanodiamond array is covered with a gadolinium-based coating that contains specific binding sites for viral RNA.
When the viral RNA binds to the coating, it is said to disrupt the magnetic properties of the material, resulting in a change in the fluorescence properties of the diamonds, which the researchers can measure with a commercially available laser-based optical sensor. The researchers believe that the new sensor will generate a false negative rate of less than 1%, which is a significant advance over existing test techniques.
The technique should also be fast, only take a few minutes, and the sensor can be made from inexpensive materials. Another advantage is the ability to scale the technology so that many samples can be assessed at the same time. While the work is currently purely theoretical, the researchers want to create a prototype as soon as possible.
Even if the technology isn’t quite as accurate as they’d like it to be, the potential for such a big leap in accuracy is enticing.
Studying in nano letters: SARS-CoV-2 quantum sensor based on nitrogen deficiency centers in Diamond
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