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Project Description

COVID-19: Why Purdue iGEM joined the fight

COVID-19 is a new viral disease strain found in humans that causes respiratory illness in infected individuals. The COVID-19 virus evolved from a family of viruses called the coronavirus and primarily affects humans. The viral disease is highly infectious and has resulted in a global pandemic. Like many individuals all over the world, the team members of Purdue iGEM were personally affected by the pandemic. One of our own members worked on the frontlines as an EMT, another could not return to their home country for over 3 months, many members lost their jobs or internships and others struggled to care for their sick loved ones remotely. Our personal stories, the stories of others, and the 1,143,291 individuals as of October 24 who died from the disease are the reason we, Purdue iGEM, masked up and joined the fight against COVID-19.

How Testing Can Mitigate The Spread of The Disease

In order to stop the spread, many companies since January have been working on developing rapid diagnostic tests for contact tracing and preventing the spread of the disease. The virus is present in infected patients in saliva and in the sputum in the form of RNA. Current tests developed are the antibody test and the molecular biology-based PCR saliva and nasal swab tests. The majority of the available tests were rushed to the market for mass production due to governmental pressure and the need for rapid testing. As a result, current tests have compromised detection accuracy. UC Davis conducted an analysis regarding the current false-negative rates of RT-PCR SARS-CoV-2. According to the model used they calculated the false-negative rates between 2% to 29% indicating up to 29% of patients could have a false negative result. The test runtimes also vary between 1-14 days.

Our Proposed Solution: cArgo

In an effort to provide accurate, non-invasive, affordable, and rapid Point of Care(POC) diagnostic tests for COVID-19 and other emerging pandemics, Purdue iGEM is working on a 2 year diagnostic device called cArgo: a COVID-19 Argonaute mediated microfluidic diagnostic device.

The Science Embedded in the Chip:

Patient saliva is inputted into the microfluidic chip
RNA from the saliva is extracted by an embedded chitosan capillary
RNA is converted to DNA and amplified producing double stranded DNA (dsDNA) via RT-RPA
Argonaute that has been incubated with DNA guides cut the dsDNA to generate single stranded DNA (ssDNA)
The ssDNA fragments bind to molecular beacon
Fluorescence is emitted and quantified via spectrophotometer
The result is outputted on a smartphone compatible app.

See the video below for a visual demonstration of how the test works:

References

coronavirus.dc.gov/page/what-covid-19

www.orissapost.com/covid-19-global-total-tops-42-million-death-toll-surges-past-1-14-million

blog.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/labbestpractice/index.php/2020/08/17/challenges-and-implications-of-false-negative-covid-19-testing

www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/coronavirus-testing-basics