# Rapid detection of infectious viral particles by cluster induced exhaustive reaction

> **NIH NIH R21** · STATE UNIVERSITY NEW YORK STONY BROOK · 2022 · $235,887

## Abstract

Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic has posed enormous challenges to health, economy, environment and immigration in
the US. Enhancement of diagnosis capacity together with restriction policies has been widely implemented to
contain the virus spreading. However, there are still over 200,000 deaths and half million hospitalized in the US
alone. The virus, Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2(SARS-CoV-2), is highly contagious while
early infection particularly in young adults often exhibits no symptoms when they are actively transmitting viruses
in the community through speaking and breathing. These two transmission approaches normally emit much
lower number of virus particles in aerosols than coughing and sneezing, and thus are difficult to detect. Despite
many types of diagnostic tools available, current on-site diagnostic technologies do not have the sufficient
sensitivity and speed to detect low number of virus particles in aerosols emitted by infected people. The gold
standard method, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and its variants are only ultrasensitive in the lab setting to
detect low copy number of viruses. Emitted aerosols are attractive target for clinical diagnosis because sampling
is not invasive, and the detection results directly determine whether a person is spreading viruses or not. To
address the above challenge, we will develop a rapid diagnostic technology based on cluster induced exhaustive
reaction (CIER) with the few virus sensitivity and disposable device with the cost of pennies, so that this kind of
paper device can be used frequently anywhere to identify an infectious individual immediately before he/she
further spreads SARS-CoV-2 to the community. CIER enables theoretically unlimited amplification of signal while
maintaining high specificity, and thus is highly applicable to detect SARS-CoV-2 particles where only the compact
cluster of antigens can trigger the CIER sensor. Two specific aims are proposed: (1) Construct CIER sensor by
assembling antibodies, spacer and HRP moieties, and optimize CIER’s design for detecting of SARS-CoV-2
virus particles with ultra-high sensitivity, and (2) Rapidly quantify SARS-CoV-2 virus particles in breath and on
surface for POC diagnosis, and distinguish influenza virus from SARS-CoV-2 by multiplexed detection. This
transformative diagnostic technology will possess ultrahigh sensitivity and specificity to detect SARS-CoV-2
viruses in exhaled air while in low cost and simple to use by any person. The use of CIER paper will not only
immediately identify virus spreading people, but also save huge waste of resources to contain pandemic by a
small percentage of contagious individuals.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10443877
- **Project number:** 5R21AI164551-02
- **Recipient organization:** STATE UNIVERSITY NEW YORK STONY BROOK
- **Principal Investigator:** Jun Wang
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $235,887
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-07-02 → 2024-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10443877

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10443877, Rapid detection of infectious viral particles by cluster induced exhaustive reaction (5R21AI164551-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10443877. Licensed CC0.

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