COVID-19 testing has been critical for informing public health policies throughout the pandemic. To provide health-care professionals with more accurate and rapid COVID-19 test results, researchers at Ryerson University, in partnership with the Toronto-based company YYZ Pharmatech Inc., National Taiwan University and St. Michael’s Hospital, are leveraging mass spectrometry – a technology widely available in hospitals, universities and clinical labs.
The team is adapting a patented detection method called Enzyme Linked Mass Spectrometric Assay (ELiMSA™) to detect extremely small traces of SARS-CoV-2 which requires only small quantities of testing substances, such as reagents, which have proven costly and in short supply during the pandemic. This means that ELiMSA could provide a relatively inexpensive method of testing that would also increase the testing capacity of health-care services.
With the potential to apply this method to other infectious diseases, researchers are also adapting the technology to help accurately identify HIV.
For more information, visit Ryerson University.
