Development of Point-of-Care Biosensors for COVID-19

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has become a global pandemic. The deleterious effects of coronavirus have prompted the development of diagnostic tools to manage the spread of disease. While conventional technologies such as quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) have been broadly used to detect COVID-19, they are time-consuming, labor-intensive and are unavailable in remote settings. Point-of-care (POC) biosensors, including chip-based and paper-based biosensors are typically low-cost and user-friendly, which offer tremendous potential for rapid medical diagnosis. This mini review article discusses the recent advances in POC biosensors for COVID-19. First, the development of POC biosensors which are made of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), papers, and other flexible materials such as textile, film, and carbon nanosheets are reviewed. The advantages of each biosensors along with the commercially available COVID-19 biosensors are highlighted. Lastly, the existing challenges and future perspectives of developing robust POC biosensors to rapidly identify and manage the spread of COVID-19 are briefly discussed.

Detection of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 spike protein by gold nanospikes in an opto-microfluidic chip

“…The World Health Organization (WHO) advised the international community to perform extensive diagnostic tests to reduce the spreading of the virus and decrease the number of unreported cases (i.e.,asymptomatic or mild cases)( Li et al, 2020 , Zhao et al, 2020 ). This strongly motivates the researchers to develop reliable testing tools to make SARS-CoV-2 diagnostics easier, cheaper and more accessible( Dincer et al, 2019 , Choi, 2020 , Morales-Narváez and Dincer, 2020 , Zhu et al, 2020 , Santiago, 2020 , Seo et al, 2020 , Bhalla et al, 2020 ). While quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) is the most reliable method to detect the genome of SARS-CoV-2 at the early stage of the infection( Corman et al, 2020 , Chu et al, 2020 , Moitra et al, 2020 ), serological tests for viral antibodies are equally important as they can identify false negative qRT-PCR responses because the virus concentration tends to become low at the late stage of the infection( LaMarca et al, 2020 ).…”

Rapid detection of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies using electrochemical impedance-based detector

“…Biosensors are the integration of a biorecognition element which remains in contact with the target molecule and a transduction element that confirms target binding and detects the event with a measurable electrical signal. A variety of biosensing platforms have been developed for respiratory viral infections ( Saylan et al, 2019 ) and COVID-19 ( Choi, 2020 ). There are many types of biosensors for antibodies ( Liu and Jiang, 2017 ), many rely on optical, chemical, and/or electrical mechanisms to produce a measureable signal.…”

Graphene biosensors for bacterial and viral pathogens

“…Whereas, they also have the drawbacks of laborious testing process, time-consuming pretreatment, and requirement of professional equipment and personnel. As a result, it is necessary to develop alternative analytical techniques for rapid, sensitive and real-time continuous monitoring of pathogens ( Choi, 2020 ). Biosensor, as the name implies, is a type of analytical device that integrates the biological recognition with physical-chemical detectors for analytes detection.…”