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Abstract Text: This U18 application is responsive to the NIH’s RADx-rad Emergency Responses to the COVID- pandemic for new or non-traditional technologies developed for single extracellular vesicle, exosome and extracellular RNA (exRNA) isolation and analysis and reposition them for detection of SARS-CoV-2. The applicant’s group is a grantee in the NIH Common Fund “Extracellular RNA…

Abstract Text: Robust, efficient and reliable testing for SARS-CoV-2 is extraordinarily challenging due to our lack of ultra- sensitive assays and ever evolving knowledge of the virus. Standard PCR based assays still result in very high false negative rates in the earliest days of infection. Microfluidic processing of clinical samples is low cost and shows…

Abstract Text: The World Health Organization has recognized a global pandemic of novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19) from exposure to the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Coronaviruses (CoVs) are membrane-enveloped positive-sense, single-stranded RNA viruses decorated with membrane proteins. The spike (S) glycoprotein is implicated in the viral attachment and fusion to host cells via…

Abstract Text: The urgent need to curb the spread of SARS-CoV-2 demands availability of diagnostics that are more rapid, accurate, sensitive and affordable than qPCR and antibody tests. Current qPCR tests are specific and sensitive, but lengthy turnaround times limit interventions against disease spread. Antibody testing is faster, but false- positive/negative rates are high. Here,…