As COVID-19 continues to spread, bottlenecks in supplies and laboratory personnel have led to long waiting times for results in some areas. In a new study, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign researchers have demonstrated a prototype of a rapid COVID-19 molecular test and a simple-to-use, portable instrument for reading the results with a smartphone in 30 minutes, which could enable point-of-care diagnosis without needing to send samples to a lab.

The paper can be found on the Nanosensors Group “Publications” page, and at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences website:

https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/08/27/2014739117

The press release to this news story can be found at:

https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/241622493