Portable COVID-19 Multi-Antibody Assay

J-C Chiao (PhD Caltech 1996), Mary and Richard Templeton Centennial Chair professor, is with Electrical and Computer Engineering at Southern Methodist University (SMU). My expertise is in bioelectronics for implants and wearables, biochemical sensors and microfluidic cancer metastasis assays. I have received 15 awarded and 9 pending patents related to medical devices with three licensed; and the 2011 TAMEST O'Donnell Award in Engineering.

Together with my teammate Dr. Ali Beskok (PhD Princeton, 1996), Brown Foundation Professor of Engineering, at SMU’s Mechanical Engineering, we are focusing our research on rapid COVID-19 antibody detection. Ali’s expertise is on electrokinetics, microfluidics, nanotechnologies and sensors with point of care applications. He has over 11,600 citations with an h-index of 45.

We have 48 years’ combined research experience on the microsystems for biomedical applications. With students, our team works closely together on the microfluidic and sensor platforms for antibody and biomarker detection.

This project aims to develop a multiplexed microfluidic sensor platform named “MAIRC” to detect the COVID-19 human IgG, IgM, IgA immunoglobulins. MAIRC is based on electrical impedance detection, nanorod-surfaces and alternative current electrothermal (ACET) flow control for efficient antibody binding and sensing. The disposable microchip and miniaturized electronics can interface with a smart phone to display results and implement artificial intelligence algorithms making it a fast, portable point-of-care device that can be used anywhere in the world for large-population diagnosis. MAIRC will provide real-time accurate information about individual patients’ profiles of immunoglobulin antibodies in blood for personalized precision treatment, and a means for reliable public risk assessment to combat the current and upcoming pandemic crisis and minimize economic impacts. The COVID-19 pandemic is ravaging communities and crippling the world economy. Such a tool, which does not exist currently, can help controlling the spread of infection and create global impact.

Many nations have imposed “stay-at-home” orders for the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As the global death toll has surpassed 500,000, health officials are uncertain about when to lift these orders and how soon daily life can return to normal. An important aspect to make decisions depends on determining the spread of virus infection, which requires extensive and accurate testing of the population. For COVID-19 specific antibodies, detections of IgG, IgM and IgA are preferred to obtain a precise picture of one’s immune system against the virus, particularly for those with asymptomatic infections or receiving target therapies.

Furthermore, testing large portions of the population requires quantifiable, reliable, fast, and inexpensive diagnostic methods. Existing methods for multiplexed detection of antibodies are expensive and bulky laboratory equipment such as the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The lateral flow assay, developed for rapid responses to this pandemic, unfortunately exhibits low sensitivity and specificity due to the passive flow mechanism and simple signal transduction. They cannot test multiple antibodies using one sample either. Several studies show that they cannot be reliably used for determining the infection spread with high false negative rates. Thus, there are dire, global needs for a better diagnostic tool.

Our solution is an integrated assay module with a disposable microfluidic chip. Blood sample drops can be collected by the finger prick method with a lancet. Plasma is filtered by passive filtration into multiplexed microchannels where impedance sensors are functionalized with specific receptors. Then the microchip is inserted into an interface module in which electronics perform electrothermal flow control to direct target biomolecules onto the electrodes and detect impedance variations at a specific radio frequency continuously. The electrical impedance changes indicate the capture of target antibodies in the blood plasma. The module communicates via wireless signals (Bluetooth) with a smart phone where the signals for specific antibodies are analyzed and displayed. Each chip can detect three different COVID-19 immunoglobulin antibodies simultaneously. The platform implements artificial intelligence with machine learning algorithms for the detected signals through a wireless cloud database to enhance accuracy and reliability.

The microfluidic device is empowered with (1) alternative current electrothermal flows to enhance specificity of antibody binding; (2) electrode surfaces modified by patterned nanorods to increase sensitivity and dynamic ranges; and (3) multiplexed in-parallel channels to detect IgG, IgA, and IgM immunoglobulins antibodies concurrently with the same blood sample without additional processing steps.

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MAIRC System

This proposed system will impact everyone in every region of the world. It directly addresses the accuracy, sensitivity and practicality utility issues for the multi-antibody sensors direly needed in the current COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Due to the extremely contagious nature and unpredictable severity and fatality among people, we have witnessed globally the virus strike communities quietly and quickly devastating economy and normality. While the coronaviruses will exist and influence individuals for at least several years, the unrelenting threat to the global community will occur indefinitely due to possible virus strain mutation/variations and limited immunity lifetime, even after vaccines become available.

Our proposed point-of-care immunoassay with concurrent sensing of multiple antibodies and smart data-driven intelligence addresses these needs directly. The detection of IgG, IgM and IgA antibody profiles give precise indications of individuals’ immunity. Based on the inherited features demonstrated in our previous works, MAIRC will be an accurate, fast, scalable for mass production and inexpensive method that enables testing for the large population. The big data collected will advance our knowledge about the COVID-19 virus and the community immunity. These evidences are critically necessary to make informed decisions to resume societal and economic activities.

Novel viruses will be an ongoing threat to human health until new vaccines are developed, as the current pandemic shows. MAIRC is reconfigurable and suitable to detect multiple specific antibodies from blood quickly, accurately and cost-effectively for any contagious pathogens such as viruses, bacteria and parasites. Thus, this solution is not a bandage to the current disaster but an enabler to empower us to be resilient against crisis. Owing to the system architectures in our designs, the microfluidic chips can be made like ICs with low-cost semiconductor fabrication. Thus, MAIRC is a sustainable solution with replicable, quick-responsive and scalable features. 

Our team has been actively working on the microfluidic sensor platforms to detect antibodies of pathogens in fluid targeting contagious bacterium (Tuberculosis) and parasite (Malaria) infections in sub-Saharan Africa regions. Besides the graduate students under our supervision conducting the research on scientific aspects, the work has been complemented by a year-long undergraduate research project, conducted by 2 engineering and 2 Health/Society major female students, supported by SMU’s Hunt Institute of Engineering and Humanity’s Global Development Lab. When the COVID-19 outbreak occurred, our team studied the shortcomings of current sensor tools and realized that a better diagnostic system is needed to effectively battle the pandemic crisis. So we steered the research objectives onto the detection of key COVID-19 antibodies. Investigators Beskok and Chiao study literatures and have many meetings to mold the research targeting the most impactful goals, and conduct consultation discussions with Drs. Csaky (SMU), Li (Texas Hospital Association) and Hendler (UT Southwestern Medical Center) to ensure the aims addressing the core issues in the contagious epidemic and the solutions being sustainable and applicable.  Our team is built on the shared passion that we can contribute our scientific and engineering expertise to help our global community fighting the pandemic.    

Teaming with Dr. Beskok, I have a long history working on engineering research to address medical problems. The team’s passion is built on our personal experiences of dealing with health issues and empathic involvements with clinicians and patients when we conduct our research on clinical applications. We have been working on research projects for chronic pain, scoliosis spine correction and heart surgeries for children, Parkinson’s diseases, metastatic prostate cancers, gastroesophageal reflux disease and gastroparesis with close collaboration with hospitals. Knowing that we can look at these tough illnesses with a different and new perspective from the conventional medical angle, and contribute our multidisciplinary engineering knowledge to construct greater solutions for diagnosis, treatment or therapy, is not just a rewarding feeling for our research but also a sense of life purpose. We are passionate about assisting healthcare outcomes and giving patients a better quality of life. Being cognitively and compassionately empathic, we feel called to action by the heartbreaking stories of millions suffering from the pandemic crisis. We have steered our research toward solving the grand challenge to stop the spreading of COVID-19. We believe an affordable, convenient, accurate and sustainable solution like our system can benefit the whole world.

I have received 15 awarded and 9 pending patents related to medical devices. 3 of them are licensed. I am the recipient of the 2011 TAMEST O'Donnell Award in Engineering nominated by Nobel Laureates and National Academies’ fellows who reside in Texas; and 2012 Heroes of Healthcare, Research in Medicine Milestone award.

Teaming with Professor Beskok, we are inseparable partners having complementary research experience and skills on the microsystems for medical applications. Beskok’s research scopes include fluid mechanics, nanotechnology, bio-microfluidics, and numerical methods. He has publications with over 11,600 citations and holds 2 awarded and 2 pending patents. He has served as the Mechanical Engineering department chair for six years.  

Both of us have produced numerous PhD/MS students and mentored postdoctoral and undergraduate students from many sponsored research projects.

Our team of professors and research students is guided by Dr. Eva Csaky, PhD, at the Hunt Institute for Engineering & Humanity, supporting the research with valuable data on the global community sociological and economical effects. Dr. Bob Hendler, MD, Chief Medical Officer at Texas Hospital Association, who was part of the team establishing the SARS disaster response plans for Texas and the Southern Region, is consulting our team to address the critical challenges and information needed on assessment of contagion spread. Our team is working closely with Dr. Quan-Zhen Li, MD, PhD, Director at Genomics & Microarray Core Facility, UT Southwestern Medical Center where rigorous characterization protocols for biomarkers and antibodies have been developed.

As researchers, we face technical issues and solve problems on a daily basis. Based on our combined 48 years of research and mentoring experience, we have developed methodologies to trace check-points, analyze failure phenomena and recommend alternative solutions to try when we encounter technical hurdles. All the critical core elements in the proposed MAIRC system have been previously demonstrated, so we are confident that there will be no unsolvable obstacle in the future. One of many examples of overcoming adversity involves our gastroesophageal reflex disease sensor development. Originally, doctors wanted us to make a visual camera implanted in the esophagus to monitor reflux. However, we realized it is impossible to continuously power such a camera. After digging into the disease’s diagnosis method, we developed a dual pH and impedance sensor implant instead. The implant not only can precisely detect reflux episodes, better than a camera, but can operate wirelessly without battery. The electrical device can be made on flexible substrates so it is comfortable to be implanted in the body for a long time. The concept later developed a ground-breaking deformable batteryless, wireless gastro-stimulator that can be implanted between the stomach wall layers and help patients to restore stomach motility.

Both investigators, Beskok and Chiao have held leadership positions in universities and technical societies. Both lead their individual research groups for more than 20 years. Beskok was a department chair and dramatically increased the department’s research and education programs. Chiao was a product line manager and senior technology advisor in a start-up company before joining academia. The company grew from 15 to 870 employees in 2.5 years and raised $225M funding. He is the Editor-in-chief of IEEE J-ERM journal and has been the general chair of IEEE International Microwave Biomedical Conference and Technical Program Chair for several international conferences such as IEEE IWS and SPIE symposia. Chiao has given 188 invited speeches advocating to engineers and general public the benefits of engineering research for clinical applications. In three events, audiences broke into tears when they shared their families’ agony from chronic pain as Chiao described his neurostimulator research for pain management and personal experience. His works have been covered by national and international media more than 700 times including television evening news, newspapers, radio, magazines and blogs such as National Geography magazine, CBS Henry Ford Innovation Nation television program, Washington Post, Wired magazine and NPR radio program.

Our goal is to develop a microfluidic multiplexed sensor platform to detect multiple antibodies in response to viral infection. Such a portable point-of-care tool does not exist today. Existing technologies hold application difficulties such as enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (bulky, expensive, non-portable) and lateral flow assays (high false rates, low tolerance in samples). Innovations that set our solution apart are:

(1) A microfluidic device that can use a single drop of blood to detect three immunoglobulin antibodies simultaneously in order to accurately assess the immune responses in the body.

(2) Electrically controlled alternative current electrothermal (ACET) flows can enhance antibody binding to increase detection speed, specificity and sensitivity.

(3) Nano-rod structured electrodes greatly increase sensitivity and reliability.

(4) Impedance sensing makes it reliable, quantifiable, cost effective and small in size.

(5) Spectrometry from the impedance sensing at radio frequencies provides more information making our results more reliable and accurate.

(6) The microfluidic chips and electronics can be miniaturized for portability and intuitive uses. They can be manufactured with existing semiconductor processes that are proven cost-effective in mass production. The antibody deposition can be done by fast inkjet printers, which can be reconfigured quickly for choices of antibodies or biomarkers. Thus the MAIRC is a sustainable solution with replicable, quick-responsive and scalable features. 

(7) The system enables real-time, continuous deep machine learning to enhance accuracy and reliability of immune response detection from harvesting big data in large populations. The data will provide valuable information to quickly assess public health.

MAIRC Device

For the current viral pandemic, testing with the conventional antibody test sticks only confirms infection without quantitative information about individual immunoglobulins that reflect the person’s immune responses to the virus.  Laboratory equipment (ELISA) can provide more information but they are expensive, bulky and require skilled operators, thus cannot provide real-time results or a scalable solution for large communities. COVID-19 is highly contagious, and timing for test results and tester availability are critical to stop spreading. Also, there are many unknowns about individual’s immune system responses or illness severity relationships to physiological, sociological or geoeconomical parameters. As majority of patients with little to mild symptoms are not staying in hospitals, or until they become seriously sick, tracking their immune responses becomes extremely difficult since there is no tool to detect antibodies at home and remotely report to caregivers.

In a short term, our MAIRC system addresses the shortcomings of the existing tools by enabling a quantifiable, fast, reliable, intuitive-to-use and inexpensive diagnostic method that identify IgG, IgM and IgA antibodies to accurately assess the immune responses of individuals for a large population. The economic impacts will be significant as business and activities can resume safely.     

In a long term, while the coronaviruses will likely exist for years, persistent threat to the global community will occur indefinitely due to virus mutations and limited immunity lifetime, even after vaccines are available. Our system, being reconfigurable, adaptable and mass-producible, enables sustainable and affordable solutions to battle future pandemics. This solution helps build health and economic resilience especially in vulnerable around the world, which have limited access to quality healthcare and cannot work from home.

To a broader perspective, similar scenarios also apply for other viral epidemics such as SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome, 2002−04 outbreak), MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome, since 2012) and H1N1 (Influenza A subtype, since 2009). Contagious diseases caused by bacteria (Tuberculosis, 13 million cases in US) and parasites (Malaria, 228 million worldwide) are life threatening and can quickly spread among global travellers. MAIRC system is applicable for the diagnosis of these diseases with the same beneficial features.

Our invention can address the needs for everyone in every region of the world. In one year, the system will go through the research stage while we actively work with companies to develop manufacturing and mass production plans. Thus currently and within one year we do not expect to be able to serve people.  

In five years, we expect to establish a commercialization plan to gear up the applications that can benefit tens of millions of people.  Our invention is to detect individuals’ antibodies profiles after infection for personalized treatment and understand his/her immunity to the COVID-19 viruses; as well as to assess the spread and potential herd immunity in a community or region. The effort can be expanded to a global scale as our invention enables many features that current tools cannot accomplish. Everyone will be directly impacted. Since the point-of-care MAIRC system can be intuitive for users at homes, workplaces and local clinics with networking capabilities, it will particularly beneficial to serve elderly at nursing homes by testing caregivers frequently, people in rural and low-income areas, refugees and internally displaced persons at specific regions as healthcare resources are not sufficient.

Our goal is to continue the research and development of the MAIRC system for demonstration of accurate detection of multiple antibodies in blood plasma. We will raise external funding to support our efforts while continuing discussion with partners such as Texas Hospital Association and private companies. We have filed patent applications and started communication and paperwork with a high-tech company for potential technology transfer and commercialization. We will seek more partnerships with research laboratories, manufacturers and healthcare practitioners to accelerate the development.

Since the challenges and impacts to combat COVID-19 spread and the advantages of our multiplexed antibody detection system are clear, we expect our efforts will inspire peers to pursue similar technology developments and accelerate global research growths for such sustainable and affordable methods to fight tough diseases by partnering with our team.

Our 5-year goals are to: (1) Advocate our experience to colleagues, fellow researchers and entrepreneurs to think outside the box with cross-field collaboration for social good. (2) Inspire global partners to expand our technologies to develop other point-of-care diagnostic systems for contagious diseases and biomarkers of cancers and cardiovascular diseases. The impacts are not only for global health and security but also affect social, economical, financial and psychological aspects. We envision new projects and applications beyond COVID-19 multi-antibody detection will be cultivated.

Our strategy for development is to first demonstrate to scientific and healthcare communities the efficacy and effectiveness of sensing multiple antibodies in one single device. Commercialization through partnership with established pharmaceutical companies will then accelerate, owing to the inherited advantages from our solution’s mass-producible nature and their available resources for product ramp-up.

Currently, we are raising funds to support researchers, materials and facility user charges. We expect the goal of demonstration can be accomplished within two years of securing the research funding. Since the core technologies of electrical impedance sensing, alternative current electrothermal flow control, and nanorod fabrication have been demonstrated, the possibility of having insurmountable hurdles is low. Consulting with our current partners will ensure the development direction meets clinical requirements and mass production procedures, as well as addresses the needs in healthcare disparities.

In the next five years, one of our goals is to work with strong partners to manufacture the MAIRC system with professional engineering designs and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP). Similar to other diagnostic tools, the efficacy and reliability demonstrations are important to receive Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval. It is difficult for researchers at a university to pass such processes without the resources and expert supports on legal and financial manners by pharmaceutical companies. We aim to seek and create synergistic business and commercialization relationships with global partners.  

For the near term, although not expecting any major hurdle, the engineering efforts such as designs, fabrication and assembly of the platform as well as characterization protocols need time and resources to conduct and optimize. The research funding needed is to recruit postdoctoral fellows so efforts can be accomplished at a faster pace.

For the five-year term, it is critical for us to align the MAIRC development with the FDA approval processes in order for this system to be manufactured by private sector companies and utilized by a large population. As the processes are expensive and require tremendous documentation, which are difficult for university researchers to accomplish, we are now in communication and preparation of legal documents to work with a commercial company, with assistance from the Technology Transfer Office at SMU to establish partnership. Companies in the medical device domain often retain consulting firms that are experienced with FDA approval strategies. This will considerably shorten our time to markets.

Additionally, our facility and resource are sufficient to develop the system and we can obtain the COVID-19 antibodies through commercial sources, but we cannot directly obtain COVID-19 patients’ samples, as the viruses are highly contagious, without going through a rigorous laboratory safety certification. Such an approval requires significant amounts of resources/time to complete. Thus, we will collaborate with the UT-Southwestern Medical School Microarray Core Facility, where biosafety protocols and requirements have been well-established with professional technicians to assist and validate the performance of our MAIRC system.

We have partnered with

  (1) Texas Hospital Association. Their consultation ensures our research and development progresses align with the goal to stop the spread of COVID-19 and our system design match the needs and protocols for general population testing.

  (2) University of Texas – Southwestern Medical School Microarray Core Facility. As mentioned, we will work with the experts to validate the performance of multiple antibody detection using existing gold standards in laboratory equipment. 

   (3) A private bioengineering company who focuses on early-stage scientific research and prototype/product development. This company name will be disclosed once negotiation is complete. This company is experienced in the transition of emerging technologies from the design and development phase into production. Both Beskok and Chiao have previously worked with the company before.

  (4) The Hunter and Stephanie Hunt Institute of Engineering & Humanity. The Hunt Institute intersects innovative research with practical applications to address regional and global problems. The interdisciplinary team (engineering, social works, public health, science, business, education) at the Institute guild our technology efforts in the realities of community needs and with development features focusing on resilient, sustainable and inclusive strategies.

Our strategy for the development is to first demonstrate the efficacy and effectiveness of sensing multiple antibodies related to COVID-19 virus in one single device during the research stage. We will disseminate the results in prestigious conferences and journals while working with researchers and product managers of private sector companies to accelerate our solution’s commercialization. The basic operational principles of our technology are protected by a provisional patent application assigned to SMU and we plan to file several patent applications for the new innovations. SMU encourages commercialization partnerships with companies and has a standard win-win patent licensing procedure. It is our common practice to obtain US patents and international provisional patents through the Patent Cooperation Treaty. Once industrial partnership is formed, international patents will be filed. We envision patents will be filed in many countries as the MAIRC platform is universal and applicable to everyone in the world and its features are superior to existing products.

Often start-up companies in the biotech sector develop technologies to a level that can be acquired and implemented by a larger company (such as Abbott Laboratories in Dallas, with whom our team members have a prior relationship). We will follow this strategy as larger pharmaceutical companies offer resources and networks that can connect to the global healthcare systems. At the same time, to build up our credentials and values, we are already communicating with a bioengineering company to complement efforts in order to advance the developments of commercial products.

Our team has been working closely together to pursue research funding. Due to the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have aggressively contacted federal and state funding agencies such as National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health, as well as foundations, regional hospital systems and companies. Our fundraising strategy is tailored to two phases.

For the short term as Phase I, we are targeting funding sources that are directly related to solving the COVID-19 crisis. These funds will be used to fast-track our MAIRC system to demonstrate the multiplexed and real-time detection of COVID-19 antibodies and data analysis, illustrating to industry its advantages in assaying a large population accurately, reliably and quickly. Once we start working with a company for technology transfer and product development, our business model is to have licensing incomes and continuity research contracts to support the remaining research.

For the longer term as Phase II, we will pursue government research funding to further develop our platform for other pathogens’ detection by sensing multiple antibodies toward contagious viruses (e.g. H1N1, MERS, Enterovirus), bacteria (e.g. Tuberculosis) or parasites (e.g. Malaria). We will also modify the hardware and software to detect biomarkers for tough health challenges such as cardiovascular diseases, cancers, and neurological disorders (e.g. Alzheimer and Multiple sclerosis). Research efforts will establish the MAIRC platform as a sustainable clinical and industry standard that can be used easily in clinics, hospitals, or even workplaces and factories.

The preliminary results in this project were initially targeting the development of a microfluidic device for the detection of Malaria and Tuberculosis infections in sub-Saharan Africa. The work has been complemented by a year-long undergraduate research project, conducted by 2 engineering and 2 health/society major female students working at the Hunt Institute of Engineering and Humanity’s Global Development Lab.

In 2020 prior to the pandemic, our project was selected and supported by the Seed Funding of $50,000 from the Lyle School of Engineering at SMU. When the epidemic events started to occur, we realized our technologies could be modified as the proposed MAIRC system to address the dire needs of diagnosis of COVID-19 infection. Thus we quickly steered our research to adapt the multiplexed antibody detection with a drop of blood from a finger prick. The funding is used currently to support research assistants to develop the prototype. Besides the seed funding, both Beskok and Chiao have obtained discretionary funding from endowments (Brown Foundation; Mary and Richard Templeton) and internal start-up support.

As SMU is a research university, it is expected the licensing incomes and related continuity research contract revenues will be used to support and further advance the research (research personnel, materials, supplies and facility fee) by the team.

We have submitted funding requests to two federal agencies and one international foundation before submitting this document. We have requested a total of about $1.2M to support the research associates, materials and supplies, and fabrication fees under the SMU sponsored research guidelines and regulations.

We are proactively approaching federal, state, and private funding agencies as the COVID-19 pandemic is ravaging communities and crippling the world economy. Health officials are uncertain about when to reopen economic activities and how soon daily life can return to normal. As we realize the superior features of our multiplexed antibody detection system, we are hoping to raise grant funding of $1.5M total to accelerate the development in the next two years in order to enter the mass production stage.

After demonstrating the MAIRC’s efficacy, accuracy and reliability, additional funding sources can be a mix of grants and equities from government and private sources to transition our development into products.  The fund will be supporting commercialization efforts and remaining research on manufacturing and system optimization. The fund required will depend on the partnership and manufacturing scale.

The following budget is estimated for the second half of the year 2020. The budget for the entire project is calculated and estimated by our current operation and costs.

• Personnel: $226,100 for senior investigators + graduate research assistants + postdoctoral research fellows
• Fringe benefits for personnel: $42,240
• Lab supplies, materials, fabrication and service fees: $37,000
• Travel: $6,000
• Facility and Administration: $142,120 (Due to overhead requirements of the university)
• Total: $480,443

Our strategy is to first demonstrate the MAIRC system to the scientific and healthcare communities its efficacy and effectiveness to track COVID-19 infection by detecting multiple antibodies simultaneously and accurately in one single device with just a drop of blood. Although the principles of all the core technologies in this system have been proven and published in peer-review journals, there are remaining efforts needed to apply the device for specific uses of COVID-19 antibodies and engineering tasks to integrate hardware and software into a system for point-of-care applications in practical scenarios. The funding from the Elevate Prize will support us to reach the objective of demonstration.  

The Elevate Prize will support two main aspects.

  (1) It will support research personnel including postdoctoral fellows to focus on the integration and characterization of the system. This is typically difficult for graduate students to accomplish since they are still in training and the work include both mechanical/electrical engineering and biochemistry disciplines. The graduate and undergraduate students working in the labs will of course benefit by learning directly from the fellows since they will be working closely together.

  (2) It will support the collaboration with the Microarray Core Facility to pay the service fees and materials such as primary and secondary antibodies for COVID-19 and controls (such as other coronaviruses and flu viruses). Our labs do not have such materials readily available for the experiments since the COVID-19 is new. Thus, they have to be acquired.

As our current goal is to demonstrate the efficacy, accuracy and features of our MAIRC system in detecting COVID-19 spread and immune responses in humans, what we need the most is funding to support personnel and materials/supplies through partnership at MIT Solve with entrepreneurs, pharmaceutical companies, and healthcare providers. The partnership with Solve and Solve’s networks will be in a global scale to cover both commercial and humanitarian efforts. As the disease manifests geographical, societal and economical disparities in health, the partnership with Solve can advance, advocate and promote our efforts in resolving the gap in antibody testing availability. Particularly, a marketing campaign with Solve can expand further partnership opportunities with stakeholders across the world. This will not only ensure wide applications to benefits disadvantaged groups globally, but also to build resilient networks sharing resources and information to prevent future pandemic.