With the world under lockdown in March of 2020, Drew Hall and Eliah Aronoff-Spencer often found themselves on the phone late into the night. Aronoff-Spencer, an infectious disease physician-scientist from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), was on the frontlines of the developing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, while Hall, an engineer also at UCSD, was “sitting around wondering how can we help.” The two spitballed ideas, musing on what they could do that would be meaningful and impactful.
After more phone calls, months of innovative and round-the-clock work, and a grant from the National Institutes of Health Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) Tech Initiative, the team introduced a fast, accurate, and economically-viable diagnostic test for COVID-19. With a team of researchers, Hall and Aronoff-Spencer repurposed an off-the-shelf glucometer to detect SARS-CoV-2 infection from patient saliva within an hour. The approach may facilitate screening for SARS-CoV-2 infection at-scale.
From the beginning, Hall ...
