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At-home test progresses

Production is underway on an at-home COVID-19 test developed in spring 2020 by KU researchers. Led by Steven Soper, Foundation Distinguished Professor of chemistry and mechanical engineering, a team of graduate students has worked throughout the year to repurpose a chip-based blood test that KU launched in 2018 to detect a variety of cancers and other diseases. The COVID-19 test uses the same technology to isolate virus particles from a saliva sample and delivers an accurate result in about 15 minutes.

Although testing for COVID-19 has decreased in recent months, thanks in large part to the widespread availability of vaccines, Soper insists it remains an important component in combating the virus, especially as new variants emerge. “This is such a dynamic event,” he says. “Who knows what’s going to happen in the next few months. Are new variants, in addition to the ones that are already out there, going to be generated that might require more rigorous testing?”

If so, says Soper, PhD’90, this chip technology could easily be reprogrammed—in just a few weeks—to detect new COVID-19 variants or other SARS-related diseases. In addition, the test will be helpful in determining if and how affected persons should be quarantined during a pandemic.

Both the chip and the cell-phone-sized handheld device in which it’s housed are in the end stages of development, and Soper’s team will work with two large-scale commercial manufacturers to produce the quantities needed for distribution. As with KU’s other blood-based chip tests, the COVID-19 test will be marketed through BioFluidica, a San Diego-based company that has an advanced research lab in Lawrence. Soper hopes the tests will be available by the end of 2021.

Though it will take more than a year to get the test from laboratory conception to commercial readiness, Soper points out that a project of this scale usually takes two to three years to complete—and his graduate students have done it in about one-third the time. “The way we were able to get that done is just mobilizing a lot of students to work on this and work as a team,” he says. “And we didn’t have millions and billions of dollars to do this. We had a very tight budget, and we were still able to pull this off.”

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Biofluidica is based in San Francisco, rather than San Diego. We regret the error.