Cholesteric liquid crystal biosensor platform with image analysis for rapid detection of COVID-19

Ping-Yuan Lin; Yi-Wei Chung; Er-Yuan Chuang; Yen-Chieh Wang; Min-Chih Lai; Yen-Chin Hsu; Chun-Che Lin; Yu-Cheng Hsiao

doi:10.3389/fbioe.2023.1148446

Cholesteric liquid crystal biosensor platform with image analysis for rapid detection of COVID-19

Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2023 Feb 28:11:1148446. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2023.1148446. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Ping-Yuan Lin¹, Yi-Wei Chung^{2

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5}, Er-Yuan Chuang⁶, Yen-Chieh Wang⁷, Min-Chih Lai⁸, Yen-Chin Hsu⁷, Chun-Che Lin⁹, Yu-Cheng Hsiao^{1

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Affiliations

¹ Graduate Institute of Biomedical Opto mechatronics, College of Biomedical Engineering, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
² Division of Cardiology, Department of Internal Medicine, Shuang Ho Hospital, Taipei Medical University, New Taipei City, Taiwan.
³ Taipei Heart Institute, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁴ Cardiovascular Research Center, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁵ Division of Cardiology, Department of Internal Medicine, School of Medicine, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁶ Graduate Institute of Biomedical Materials and Tissue Engineering, College of Biomedical Engineering, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁷ School of Biomedical Engineering, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁸ School of Nutrition and Health Sciences, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁹ Institute of Organic and Polymeric Materials, National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei, Taiwan.
¹⁰ Cell Physiology and Molecular Image Research Center, Wan Fang Hospital, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
¹¹ Stanford Byers Center for Bio Design, Stanford, CA, United States.

Abstract

Rapid and low-cost diagnosis of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is essential to identify infected subjects, particularly asymptomatic cases, primarily to arrest the spread of the disease through local transmission. Antibody-based chromatographic serological tests, as an alternative to the RT-PCR technique, offer only limited help due to high false positives. We propose to exploit our cholesteric liquid crystal biosensor platform for one-step, wash-free, rapid detection of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus directly with minimal sample pre-processing. As mentioned above, cholesteric liquid crystals are an effective and innovative approach to healthcare as a rapid test for the diagnosis of COVID-19 and other diseases.

Keywords: COVID-19; biosensor; cholesteric liquid crystal; diagnosis; spike protein.

Grants and funding

This research work was financially supported by grants from Taipei Medical University Hospital (109TMU-TMUH-02), Shuangho Hospital, Ministry of Health And Welfare (111FRP-06) and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), Taiwan (MOST 108-2221-E-038-017-MY3, 109-2636-E-038-001, 111-2320-B-038-039, and 108-2320-B-038-061-MY3), University System of Taipei under grant number. USTP-NTUT-TMU-109-02.