# A Sensing Platform for Rapid at Home-Test of COVID-19

> **NIH NIH R03** · UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND BALTIMORE COUNTY · 2020 · $76,500

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
Since the first case of COVID-19 was reported in the United States (U.S.) on January 21st, 2020, it
has already been ascertained to affect >900K active cases with >50K deaths. Currently, COVID-19
is being diagnosed primarily by three techniques, i.e. reverse-transcription polymerase chain
reaction (RT-PCR), gene sequencing and chest computed tomography (CT). However, limitations
of sample collection and transportation, as well as kit performance with inadequate access to
advanced instrumental techniques, often cannot report COVID-19 at its initial presentation leading
to the spread of this infectious disease to a wider community. Moreover, researchers found at least
three central variants, distinguishable by amino acid changes, among 160 different complete human
SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences. This limits the universal applicability of the currently available
commercial COVID-19 kits. In this proposal we present a novel approach for screening of active
COVID-19 cases with a paper based lateral flow assay mediated colorimetric POC biosensor that
would be able to detect the SARS-CoV-2 gene sequence using specifically designed antisense
oligonucleotides (ASO). This unique approach for selective sensing of SARS-CoV-2 eliminates the
possibility of misinterpretation arisen due to the genomic variants of SARS-CoV-2 which is the most
concerning limitation of the current COVID-19 sensing kits.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10158929
- **Project number:** 3R03EB028026-02S2
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND BALTIMORE COUNTY
- **Principal Investigator:** Dipanjan Pan
- **Activity code:** R03 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $76,500
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2019-08-15 → 2022-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10158929

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10158929, A Sensing Platform for Rapid at Home-Test of COVID-19 (3R03EB028026-02S2). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10158929. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*