Harvard: Smartphone Zika Virus Test

A new smartphone app that will only cost about $5 will allow people all over the world to diagnose Zika. Harvard and Brigham and Women’s Hospital researchers made their diagnostic app public in the latest issue of the journal ACS Nano from the American Chemical Society.

The app is based on nanomotor-based bead-motion cell phone system (NBC). “The NBC system has the potential to be used at the point of care for disease detection,” said Mohamed Shehata Draz, lead author and contributor from Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

The process requires a kit that includes platinum nanomotors that are armed with antibodies and microbeads of polystyrene, which can bind the virus. The components clump together into a structure that moves in reaction to hydrogen peroxide. An optical attachment works with the cell phone's motion tracking to make the diagnosis.

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