Yoon Lab Helps Develop Smartphone-Based COVID-19 Test
A team of UArizona researchers under Biosystems and Biomedical Engineering professor, Dr. Jeong-Yeol Yoon, have developed a smart phone based COVID-19 test aimed to combine the speed of existing nasal swab antigen tests with the high accuracy of nasal swab PCR. Dr. Yoon built a blue print to this device so that other scientist can repeat and create a norovirus-detecting device. The safe, less invasive, and inexpensive saline swish-gargle test will play a huge role in the smart phone based COVID-19. The device was created due to the inaccurate results and long wait periods meanwhile providing simpler detection of the virus by using a smart phone, a simple microscope, and a piece of wax-coated paper. In total the entire cost of a test would $45. While this test will not be implemented yet, the researchers plan to partner with the University of Arizona to distribute them around campus as a testing device that the average person can use.