# A Highly Specific Point-of-Care Rapid Real-time Sensing Device for COVID-19

> **NIH NIH R03** · UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND BALTIMORE COUNTY · 2020 · $70,380

## 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 an electrochemical quantitative biosensor. This unique approach
for selective sensing of SARS-CoV-2 eliminates the possibility of misinterpretation arisen due to the genomic
variants of this virus which is the most concerning limitation of the current COVID-19 sensing kits. We
anticipate that our sensor can detect the specific target nucleic acid sequences without signal cross talk with
a detection limit to be around 50 fg/ml with time of response to be around 2-3 mins.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10158992
- **Project number:** 3R03EB028026-02S1
- **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:** $70,380
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2019-08-15 → 2022-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10158992

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10158992, A Highly Specific Point-of-Care Rapid Real-time Sensing Device for COVID-19 (3R03EB028026-02S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10158992. Licensed CC0.

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