Debashis Chanda of UCF has developed a device that detects viruses such as COVID-19 faster than current rapid tests. The optical sensor uses nanotechnology to quickly identify viruses in blood samples with 95% accuracy.

“The sensitive optical sensor, along with the rapid fabrication approach used in this work, promises the translation of this promising technology to any virus detection including COVID-19 and its mutations,” Chanda says. “Here, we demonstrated a credible technique which combines PCR-like genetic coding and optics on a chip for accurate virus detection directly from blood.”

• Debashis Chanda