RAPID: Revolutionary Massively-Parallel Bioreactions for COVID-19

Engineering - This project will provide the basis for a new test and diagnostic that can be performed in as little as 2 minutes and a cost as low as $2. This could be used routinely to test for hidden spreaders of disease at airports or entrances to hospitals or long-term care facilities. Availability of this diagnostic would be transformative. The speed and low cost could provide the first point-of-contact molecular tests diagnostic for diseases such as COVID-19. Two minutes and $2 is fast enough and inexpensive enough to perform such routine screening in airports to detect asymptomatic spreaders as they embark or disembark from airplanes. Thus, this tool could prevent such diseases from spreading beyond the initial outbreak. Similarly, the method could be used to screen employees when they arrive to work at hospitals, long-term care facilities, or prisons, and avoid the huge toll a disease such as COVID-19 is taking. Finally, the method could be used for routine screening at large facilities such as factories, food processing or distribution facilities, and large government buildings, allowing our economy to return to a more normal state. The research will also lead to new knowledge on performing massively-parallel microscale reactions and provide training for a student.

This project will advance research and applications on massively-parallel bioreactions to enable a new point-of-contact for testing and diagnostic that will have a transformative impact on how we handle pandemics such as COVID-19. The technology will enable a 2-minute test for sample diagnostic at a cost of $2 per assay. The investigator uses a new format to speed thermal cycling while achieving approximately 1,000,000-fold sample partitioning to accelerate sample preparation without micro-patterning or microfluidics. They will achieve the required large area temperature uniformity using optical heating while simultaneously using confinement of lateral diffusion to produce ~1,000,000 virtual reaction wells.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.