Irene Bosch, a Venezuelan biologist in Boston, Massachusetts, along with her team developed rapid tests to detect the coronavirus. Like pregnancy tests, in just minutes this one can determine whether a person is positive or not for the virus.
It is called the Point of Care Covid-2. While the pregnancy test detects the hormone that signals it, this one reveals the viral protein in the person who is infected. The device is made of plastic and inside it contains a paper with colloidal gold (an anti-inflammatory) and antibodies. For detection, a swab is inserted in the nose and a sample of the secretions is taken and put in contact with the device.
If the result is positive, the components will react with a red line. The results can appear in up to 15 or 20 minutes (tests that already exist take days), but if the viral load is high, it will show up in seconds, Bosch told Cesar Miguel Rondon in a video interview.
Rapid tests would help with early detection, especially in people without symptoms, and would prevent further spread of the virus with early action if diagnosed.
The laboratory, which Bosch founded and specializes in detecting emerging viral diseases, already uses similar devices to detect zika, chikungunya, and dengue. “Those kinds of devices have already been done. The design is not new, but what is new is the speed with which it was developed for the detection of this virus,” the scientist told Gretta M. Gil Anzola of El Estímulo.
The difference, Bosch said in a conversation with César Miguel Rondón, lies in the cost: the tests for dengue, zika and chikungunya cost one dollar per sample. “For this one, which we have to do much faster, it’s going to cost about eight dollars, 10 dollars. The cost is higher than dengue, but it’s the same principle.”
The factory that works with the laboratory, the scientist told Rondón and Gil Anzola, has the capacity to produce between 10,000 and 100,000 devices daily.
“Since we have data that tells us this is going to work, we have to make a large production. There are places where these points of care are assembled and up to 7 million can be made per day,” she told Rondón.
It takes four weeks to manufacture, “so we can start with a significant number. The rest will be a matter of packaging and shipping,” the scientist told El Estímulo’s reporter.
Gil Anzola reported that the Point of Care Covid-2 is in the “clinical validation stage.” When its effectiveness has been proven, production will come “for sale, in principle, to health centers in the United States and subsequently to the rest of the world.”
The laboratory has already obtained the first financing of 2 million dollars from Khosla Ventures.
The lab’s chief executive officer, Bobby Brooke Herrera, told NBC Boston reporter Nia Hamm: “Our biggest goal is to provide early detection of viruses at an affordable price.”
But, as Hamm puts it, the question remains as to the cost of this test for low-income communities once the product is on the market.
Irene Bosch told Cesar Miguel Rondón that she and her team are seeking to approach the governor of Massachusetts and the mayors in the region and ask them “give us a hand, to give us incentives.”
Neither Herrera nor Bosch details whether their lab would reach an agreement with authorities to have the tests done at low cost or free of charge to the population.
Irene Bosch is a biologist who graduated from the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas. Her curriculum vitae published on Linkedin shows that between 1981 and 1983 she was an assistant professor at the Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Research, and between 1985 and 1987 she was an assistant research professor at the University of Carabobo. She moved to the United States almost 30 years ago. At Harvard University she did a postgraduate degree in Tropical Medicine. She was a professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School for 10 years. She has been a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for a decade. She founded the E25Bio lab over a year ago.