Recognises the spike protein from the SARS-CoV-2 virus
To do so, they exchanged the antibody that recognises amyloid beta for a nanobody from llamas that recognises the spike protein from the SARS-CoV-2 virus.David Brody, a former faculty member at Washington University, and an author on the paper, developed the nanobody in his lab at the National Institutes of health (NIH). The nanobody is small, easy to reproduce and modify and inexpensive to make, the researchers said.
“The nanobody-based electrochemical approach is faster at detecting the virus because it doesn’t need a reagent or a lot of processing steps, said Carla Yuede, an associate professor at Washington University.
”SARS-CoV-2 binds to the nanobodies on the surface, and we can induce oxidation of tyrosines on the surface of the virus using a technique called square wave voltammetry to get a measurement of the amount of virus in the sample,” Yuede said. Researchers integrated the biosensor into an air sampler that operates based on wet cyclone technology.
air enters the sampler at very high velocities and gets mixed centrifugally with the fluid that lines the walls of the sampler to create a surface vortex, thereby trapping the virus aerosols. The wet cyclone sampler has an automated pump that collects the fluid and sends it to the biosensor for seamless detection of the virus using electrochemistry.
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