Smartphone-controlled biosensor for viral respiratory infectious diseases: Screening and response

Outbreaks of emerging viral respiratory infectious diseases (VRIDs) including coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID19) seriously endanger people's health. However, the traditional nucleic acid detection required professionals and larger instruments and antigen-antibody detection suffered a long window period of target generation. To facilitate the VRIDs detection in time for common populations, a smartphone-controlled biosensor, which integrated sample preparation (electromembrane extraction), biomarker detection (red-green-blue model) and remote response technology (a built-in APP), was developed in this work. With the intelligent biosensor, VRIDs could be recognized in the early stage by using endogenous hydrogen sulfide as the biomarker. Importantly, it only took 15 min to accomplish the whole process of screening and response to VRIDs. Moreover, the experimental data showed that this smartphone-controlled biosensor was suitable for ordinary residents and could successfully differentiate non-communicable respiratory diseases from VRIDs. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that a smartphone-controlled biosensor for screening and response to VRIDs was reported. We believe that the present biosensor will help ordinary residents jointly deal with the challenges brought by COVID19 or other VRIDs in the future.

Automated summary

In this study, a smartphone-controlled biosensor was developed to detect emerging viral respiratory infectious diseases (VRIDs) such as COVID19. The intelligent biosensor could screen and respond to VRIDs within a short period of time, and it was able to successfully differentiate non-communicable respiratory diseases from VRIDs. This is the first reported smartphone-controlled biosensor for screening and response to VRIDs, and it is believed to be helpful for ordinary residents to deal with the challenges brought by COVID19 or other VRIDs in the future.