10-minute fingerprint test for Covid-19 is within reach
A 10-minute on-site coronavirus test is within reach of Intelligent Fingerprinting.
The company, based on Evolution Business Park in Impington, has developed the world’s only portable fingerprint-based drug screening system and says the technology could play a crucial role in detecting the virus – the vital part of the equation which will help ease lockdown restrictions on a troubled nation and beyond.
Currently, coronavirus diagnostic tests – which tell whether people actually have the Covid-19 virus – can take hours if they have to wait for results at a hospital, or days if the swab test sample needs to be sent off to a laboratory for testing.
St Ives-based Sense Biodetection, as reported last week, is developing a 10-minute point-of-care diagnostic.
Now Intelligent Fingerprinting hopes to offer another alternative, by utilising the lateral flow assay technology within its fingerprint testing cartridge and the fluorescence measurement techniques within its portable reader.
“The national goal is to make coronavirus testing available for as many people as possible, and Intelligent Fingerprinting is keen to work with its testing industry counterparts to help achieve this target,” said Intelligent Fingerprinting’s executive chairman, Philip Hand.
“We think fluorescence measurement has a valuable role to play, but we’re going to need some help when it comes to accelerating development and enabling volume manufacturing.
“Now is the time for the testing sector to come together to support the international effort to help reduce the impact of the Covid-19 virus.”
Support for the procedure is already rolling in.
Commenting on the ongoing development of a fingerprint-based Covid-19 diagnostic test, Lord Darzi, director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College, said: “Meeting UK Covid-19 testing goals is a critical part of our collective effort in controlling the virus, and fingerprint-based testing could, if developed, have an important role to play in accelerating the testing process.
“I’m supporting Intelligent Fingerprinting’s efforts to accelerate the development of this test, and am particularly keen to see other potential partners get involved as quickly as possible.”
The company’s DSR-Plus analysis unit is based on the intrinsically very sensitive technique of fluorescence. By using the DSR-Plus reader and lateral flow-based screening diagnostics, Intelligent Fingerprinting can detect specific drugs or their metabolites in the eccrine sweat collected from fingerprints.
The technology detects picogram amounts of chemicals, as opposed to routine screening technologies that detect nanogram amounts – enabling a thousand-fold improvement in sensitivity.
Combining the DSR-Plus reader with a dedicated coronavirus testing cartridge “could provide the basis for a robust, extremely sensitive and rapid Covid-19 test that is suitable for deployment at any number of locations”, said a company spokesperson.
An added benefit of the technique is that it is hygienic. By using sweat from a fingerprint rather than nasal or oral fluid samples, no hazardous biological waste is associated with each test.
Potential partners should get in touch with Intelligent Fingerprinting’s Philip Hand at philip.hand@intelligentfingerprinting.com.
Meanwhile, Change Grow Live, the UK’s leading provider of drug and alcohol treatment services, is deploying the company’s technology. Intelligent Fingerprinting’s drug testing system is being introduced across 50 Change Grow Live UK sites for assessment. The non-invasive and hygienic test will measure whether proscribed opioid substitution drugs including methadone and buprenorphine have been taken as directed.
“Coronavirus is clearly causing organisations across the world to rethink many of their core operational processes, and that’s particularly the case with drug testing where traditional methods that require bodily fluid samples present challenges due to their biohazardous nature,” said Mr Hand.
