Utah computer engineering professor making COVID-19 smartphone sensor

The sensor would send results to a phone via Bluetooth within 60 seconds

Imagine being able to detect Coronavirus with a smartphone. Indeed, that is actually what they're working with at the University of Utah.

What began as a device to help recognize a totally different virus, could turn into a major part of tracking COVID-19.

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Massood Tabib-Azar, the lead engineer taking a shot at this project stated, "We began this project around a year back, and the fundamental thought was to enable individuals to have their very own sensors to detect Zika in places that they travel."

The plan is to take the Zika virus sensor and program it to identify COVID-19.

"Our model will be around the size of a quarter and it would communicate with a cellphone utilizing Bluetooth," said Tabib-Azar.

Analysts state if somebody somehow happened to inhale, cough, sniffle, or blow on the sensor, it is ready to tell in the event that somebody had COVID-19.

If the infection is present, the DNA strands stuck the sensor would bind to the infection's proteins and electrical resistance is estimated in the device, signaling a positive result.

The results would then be shown on a smartphone within 60 seconds.

Engineers state it could also test for the infection on a surface by utilizing a swab and placing it onto the sensor.

Tabib-Azar says he needs to make it possible to send the results to health offices as well.

"You'd press the button and it can send to a central location, Centers for Disease Control, or whatever other authority that you'd select in your options and then real-time can update the map," said Tabib-Azar.

In theory, this could work with the Healthy Together application produced for the state of Utah and some other COVID-19 tracking applications.

The sensor will be reusable because it can crush the past sample with a small electrical current which warms up and deteriorates the infection.

Tabib-Azar said, "On a principle, you can place these devices in everybody's hand, and once we produce them in huge scape inexpensively, then it resembles some other that individuals want to have with them."

The plan is to have a working model in two months before submitting it for clinical trials, which are required to last one more month, so hopefully, in a quarter of a year's time, this will be something any of us can utilize.

"Along these lines, you can test yourself each day, or at whatever point you need, and have some true peace that you are healthy and your condition is healthy," said Tabib-Azar.

This device could give medical specialists a clearer and more precise image of where COVID-19 problem areas are and permit them to gather test results easier.

It would also be a less uncomfortable test to manage than the present technique for a nasopharyngeal swab.

Tabib-Azar got a $200,000 National Science Foundation Rapid Response Research award to build this portable and reusable coronavirus sensor.

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