A coronavirus test with your smartphone? this innovation was developed in Lille and it will turn your phone into a real Covid-19 screening tool.
Carrying out a screening with your phone is no longer a thing of the future. Lille researchers have set up an invention that combines electronics and chemistry. With this new screening, it will be possible to know if we are positive or negative in a few minutes, without going to a screening center. No more taking a swab from the back of the nostril. Make way for a simple saliva test with a collection kit accessible to all (provided you have a mobile phone).
. How does this screening work?
All you have to do is connect a mini electrode to the smartphone, on the battery charging port. The electrode, which acts as a USB key, has a thin strip, housing a receiver where a nasopharyngeal sample will be deposited. The virus is enveloped by proteins, and it is these proteins called “Spike” that will be recognized by this nanotechnology. In the telephone, an application is then able to measure our result in real time. Thus, you will see on your application an electrical signal, a digital marker that will alert you or not of the presence of coronavirus. The result is available in just 10 minutes. “In the long term, we might even know (through the app) whether we are weakly positive or severely positive“ says Sabine Szunerits at the microphone of BFMTV.
The test is 90% reliable like a PCR test and the Lille researchers behind this invention are currently in discussions with electrode manufacturers in order to massively produce this revolutionary test, which will also have to obtain the approval of the health authorities.
