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Spain: they designed a test to detect the coronavirus through cell phones

2021-02-08T19:31:07.855Z


The author of the device is called César de la Fuente and he is a 35-year-old biotechnician who was born in La Coruña. The test takes just four minutes.


Marina Artusa

02/08/2021 16:00

  • Clarín.com

  • World

Updated 02/08/2021 16:00

Spain, the second country in the European Union with the highest rate of infections in this third wave of the pandemic, continues to regret deficiencies in tracking those infected.

Far from his homeland, however,

a Spaniard designed a diagnostic test

that would allow us to know, from home, if we are positive for coronavirus with just a saliva sample, in four minutes and through the cell phone.

The author of the device is called César de la Fuente and he is a 35-year-old biotechnician who was born in A Coruña, is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania -where he also runs a laboratory- and last year he was named the best by the American Chemical Society young researcher from the United States.

"The system is quite simple:

we use electrochemistry

, which is a technology that allows us to transform the chemical information that derives from the union between the virus and a receptor that we have installed on a chip," De la Fuente clarifies in

Clarín

.

Technology transforms that chemical information into an electrical signal.

That is what we detect.

And that is the signal that we then visualize in an application on our cell phone.

There we are told if the sample is infected or not ”.

The cost of the test would be less than five euros

"because the chip can be printed on different materials such as cardboard or paper", clarifies De la Fuente.

-Your test would help compensate for the deficit in the screening of positive cases, but how recommendable is it to put in the hands of the general population a diagnostic test that everyone can have at home?

-That is a good question.

I trust the population.

The key is to develop a test that is very easy to use.

That the average person can use it autonomously without practically error.

It is essential to create a test that is cheap enough for everyone to use and easy to use.

I see a future in which people have tests for covid in their homes, which will surely become chronic in our society.

But also for flu or sexually transmitted diseases, malaria, dengue ...

-What would be the main advantage?

-A very important concept: with a test that people can have at home and use easily, the spread of infectious diseases can be prevented.

Diagnostic tests that prevent the exponential spread of a virus can be essential to enhance the prevention we need in health.

And that has the projection of saving many lives and saving many millions in health expenses, which are not only those of hospitals but also the medicines that will have to be created because resistance appears due to its massive use.

Creating a medicine today costs more than a trillion dollars, which is more money than what it takes to get a rocket to the moon.

-But in a pandemic context, having a diagnostic test that can be had at home, could it not be risky given the possibility that people do not report, for various reasons, to the health system about their positive for covid and that sensitive data does not leave the private sphere?

-Our idea is to implement our test on the cell phone and with a telemedicine system to be able to transmit these data immediately to the health system.

We have not implemented it yet, but the idea is that the device also serves to control sources of infection in the population.

-Is your device capable of detecting asymptomatic patients?

-It is extremely sensitive.

I wouldn't say that it is more sensitive than a PCR, but it is sensitive enough that if there is a viral load in a saliva or nasal sample, the virus can be detected.

In this way, the presence of the virus can be detected in asymptomatic patients.

-What's missing for your test to be on the street?

-We will make the presentation to the FDA (the Food and Drug Administration of the United States).

Acceptance times are highly variable.

Once the FDA approves it, we will have a free hand to market it.

Madrid.

Correspondent

Look also

Ban cell phones for Covid patients?

The unusual proposal of the director of a hospital in Spain

Get vaccinated against the coronavirus by order of Justice?

A controversy that grows in Spain

Source: clarin

All news articles on 2021-02-08

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