The disaster of US testing for COVID-19 opens the way for novel approaches to diagnosing the disease, some of which may get emergency-use approval from the US Food & Drug Administration if they show promise.
Enter the smartphone. The camera on the average smartphone is powerful enough to capture substantial information from the appearance of fluid in a genetic test. Coupled with deep learning computer programs, such detail could, in theory, be analyzed by an app on the phone to produce an answer on the spot as to whether an individual has a disease.
A smartphone approach could open the way to a very simple diagnostic kit for COVID-19 that could be used on-site, whether in a clinic, a drive-through or pop-up testing facility, or an out-of-the way setting such as a rural location that's far from a laboratory.
The science of such an approach has been in development for several years now and is reaching a new level of elegant simplicity in the time of COVID-19.
Aashish Priye, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at the University of Cincinnati, has been steadily refining an ultra-portable test-in-a-box, if you will, for infectious disease.
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