90-minute COVID-19 testing device
The blue circular CovidNudge cartridge inside the NudgeBox analyzer. Credit: Thomas Angus/Imperial College London
Since the emergence of the novel Coronavirus, scientists, healthcare workers and physicians have stressed on the need for more rapid diagnostic testing. A recent study from Imperial College London shows that a new testing device can yield results in just 90 minutes.
The new paper, published in the Lancet Microbe, claims that the new testing device, dubbed CovidNudge, has successfully matched time-consuming laboratory test results. This means that waiting days for a COVID-19 test result will soon be a thing of the past.
The testing on the CovidNudge started back in April, when a research team led by Professor Graham Cooke began trawling three different hospitals across London and Oxford looking for noses and throats to swab. They managed to obtain 386 samples from three different groups: emergency department patients with suspected Coronavirus, self-referred healthcare workers with suspected Coronavirus, and hospital-admitted patients with or without COVID-19.
Paired samples indicated that Cooke’s group can directly compare the accuracy of their 90-minute testing device with centralized lab tests. Cooke explained in a press release that the results were remarkable. He claimed that the CovidNudge does not have a trade-off between speed and accuracy, the testing device can achieve both.
The CovidNudge is basically a portable PCR platform that is spread across two devices:
a blue container, weighing in at 40g, called the DnaCartridge, which looks similar to the container you might put your retainer in at night. A nose and throat swab are taken from the patient and are then inserted directly into the DnaCartridge. The cartridge is then placed in the NudgeBox processing unit, a box roughly the size of a shoebox and coming in at 5kg. This packs in all the testing equipment needed to run a real-time PCR test.
The CovidNudge had spectacular performance, as it achieved an overall sensitivity of 94% and a specificity of 100% when compared with lab-based tests. Out of the 386 samples collected, the CovidNudge confirmed 67 positive results, compared to 71 positive results from lab tests.
The testing device is produced by DnaNudge, an Imperial start-up that includes clinicians and doctors from Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Chelsea & Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, DnaNudge, and Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust. So far, it has been deployed and installed in eight London hospitals.