Nanomechanical spectrometry as an early alert system of the presence of airborne pathogens in critical settings

Hospital acquired infections have been recognised as a healthcare associated risk for patients for at least a hundred years. The hospital environment may be contaminated with various environmental pathogens and with more virulent organisms. Airborne organisms can be inhaled, fall directly onto wounds or instruments or survive on surfaces and then be indirectly transmitted to patients. During the recent pandemic related to SARS-COV-2 and the Covid-19 disease, we have been aware that understanding the transmission routes is critical to stop the virus spread. In the framework of FET-PROACT-VIRUSCAN-731868 an optonanomechanical system for spectrometry of viruses from liquid samples is under development, bringing optomechanical devices to a diagnostic clinical application for the first time. IMN-CSIC has already registered two patents related to its work in the framework of VIRUSCAN, demonstrating the capability to identify unique intrinsic mechanical modes of pathogens and setting the adequate method to extract several parameters from the devices for their unequivocal identification. With the aim to contribute to minimize as much as possible the impact the current COVID-19 pandemic is having around the world, we decided to test the technology with inorganic nanoparticles present in the air environment. Results demonstrate that our mechano-optic system and method of analysis, also work for the identification and detection of viruses in air samples, being the aim of VirAIR to demonstrate and exploit its applicability for detecting SARS-COV-2 viral particles from the air environment as an early alert system of much interest for the preventive medicine units at hospitals. Such aim is out of the framework of VIRUSCAN, which is focused only on diagnostic applications and liquid samples. Thus, VirAIR main objective is to turn results from VIRUSCAN project into genuine societal and economic innovations, much needed now to contribute to stop the current COVID-19 pandemic spread.