Soon Covid-19 tests directly on his smartphone ?
It is the story of a meeting between researchers from Lille and Marseille.
From the very beginning of the pandemic, this multidisciplinary project was born from an unprecedented and close collaboration between 3 partners :
IEMN (Pr Sabine Szunerits, Dr Rabah Boukherroub, Quentin Pagneux), an antibody biology laboratory of the University of Marseille and the CNRS (Dr Christian Cambillau and Dr Alain Roussel) and the University Hospital Center of Lille (CHU Lille) (Pr David Devos), with virologists Dr. Kazali Alidjinou, Dr. Ilka Engelmann and infectious disease specialists Dr. Emmanuel Faure and Prof. Julien Poissy, Dr. Anne Sophie Rolland).
The device is based on the grafting of small antibodies called « nanobodies » on the surface of an electrode to perform electrochemical measurements. The interaction between the « nanobody » immobilized on the electrode surface and the viral particle induces a change in current. The test uses an electrochemical technique that allows the rapid detection of this signal within 10 minutes. It is a revolutionary and novel technique that reveals the live virus; it is therefore an « infectivity » test – a test for active infection of covid-19; if it is positive it means that the person is carrying an active live virus and not a previous infection! The technology developed in this project is very innovative and gives the device an undeniable competitive advantage.
