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Coping with Covid: Quick, at-home COVID-19 test in the works by KU researchers

A research team at the University of Kansas is working to develop a quick-turnaround COVID-19 test that can be used at home with funding provided by the National Institutes of Health, the group working toward conducting clinical trials in order to obtain approval from the FDA for its widespread use.

A quick-turnaround, at-home COVID-19 test may soon be available due to the ongoing work of researchers at the University of Kansas.

Made possible through funding provided by the National Institutes of Health, several bioengineering and chemistry graduate students are working with Steven Soper, a professor in the School of Engineering and Department of Chemistry to repurpose a “lab on a chip” technology Sopher had developed, according to a news release from the University of Kansas.

First developed to provide doctors with a quicker and easier way to diagnose certain conditions in patients, Sopher and his team of graduate students are working on the new chip to help detect COVID-19.

The test uses a small plastic chip — about 38 by 42 millimeters — that contains 1.5 million tiny pillars, just 10 microns wide and 50 microns tall, the release said. Each tiny pillars contains a piece of ribonucleic acid that “recognizes” a protein found in the COVID-19 virus particle.

Although the science behind how the chip works seems a bit complicated, for individuals, taking a test with the new chip will be straightforward.

“You take a saliva sample, you put it in the chip, and the chip does the processing,” Soper said in the release.

Sopher and his team are working toward conducting clinical trials of the new test between now and the end of 2020, waiting to gain approval from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration to make the test available, manufacture and get it on the market.

The duration of the test and a delivered result is expected to take about 15 minutes and if approved, will be one of the quicker COVID-19 tests made available to the public.