Enhancing at-home COVID tests with glow-in-the dark materials
Results read on smartphone

Date:
March 7, 2023
Source:
University of Houston
Summary:
Researchers are using glow-in-the-dark materials to enhance and
improve rapid COVID-19 home tests.


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FULL STORY ========================================================================== Researchers at the University of Houston are using glow-in-the-dark
materials to enhance and improve rapid COVID-19 home tests. If you've
taken an at-home COVID-19 or pregnancy test, then you've taken what is scientifically called a lateral flow assay (LFA) test, a diagnostic
tool widely used because of its rapid results, low cost and ease of
operation. When you read test results, you see colored lines.


==========================================================================
"We are making those lines glow-in-the-dark so that they are more
detectable, so the sensitivity of the test is better," said Richard
Willson, Huffington- Woestemeyer Professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and professor of biochemical and biophysical sciences, who previously created a COVID smartphone-based app and test kit based on
the technology underlying home pregnancy tests.

The first idea for glow-in-the-dark technology sprang from a star pasted
on the ceiling of Willson's young daughter's bedroom. One night while he
was putting her to sleep, he peered at the glow-in-the-dark star and his
mind began to wander, applying its principles to science. Within days
Willson and his team of students and postdocs was creating a test with
glowing nanoparticles made of phosphors, which would make the particles
even more detectable and the tests more accurate. Two of the students
became the founders of Luminostics (now called Clip Health), a spinoff
from the Willson lab).

Now in the Willson lab, the next generation is developing.

"In this new development, there are two tricks. First, we use enzymes,
proteins that catalyze reactions, to drive reactions that emit light,
like a firefly.

Second, we attached those light-emitting enzymes onto harmless virus
particles, along with antibodies that bind to COVID proteins," reports
Willson in the Royal Society of Chemistry's journal Analyst.

The reason these steps are useful is that one antibody on a virus can
bind to one COVID target on the test strip and bring along with it many light-emitting enzymes. So, the team gets more light for each target, thus needing fewer targets to see the light, making the test more sensitive.

And while you might be able to read the results with your eye in a very
dark room, the Willson team created a little plastic box to exclude
light and let a smartphone camera do the reading.

"This is more reproducible and probably more sensitive, and with
smartphones you can communicate the results to databases and things
like that," said the paper's corresponding author Katerina Kourentzi, University of Houston research associate professor of chemical and
biomolecular engineering. Jacinta Conrad, Frank M. Tiller Associate
Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, also from the William
A. Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering, is on team. Others
from UH include the first author of the paper Maede Chabi, Binh Vu,
Kristen Brosamer, Maxwell Smith and Dimple Chavan.

Willson adds the sensitivity is really excellent, better than essentially
any commercial tests, making the technology useful in an array of
medical arenas.

"This technology can be used for detecting all kinds of other things,
including flu and HIV, but also Ebola and biodefense agents, and
maybe toxins and environmental contaminants and pesticides in food,"
said Willson.

So truly, the sky -- and stars -- are the limit.

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========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Houston. Original
written by Laurie Fickman. Note: Content may be edited for style and
length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Maede Chabi, Binh Vu, Kristen Brosamer, Maxwell Smith, Dimple
Chavan,
Jacinta C. Conrad, Richard C. Willson, Katerina
Kourentzi. Smartphone- read phage lateral flow assay for
point-of-care detection of infection.

The Analyst, 2023; 148 (4): 839 DOI: 10.1039/D2AN01499H ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/03/230307174326.htm

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