I admit it.  I feel a little nervous telling you about this.

Because I can’t find ONE technical article describing this device.

But, I know that many of the new products we’ve developed would be in the same boat.  We wouldn’t publicize our device until it was on the market.   And, sometimes our clients would never approve of us submitting a technical article- they would panic that someone could duplicate our innovative idea.

So, with that caveat in mind, let’s consider this new invention.

But, first a little introduction.

In America, we have (at least) two government agencies that promote new product ideas.  One is DARPA and the other is BARDA.  DARPA is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.  This DOD (Department of Defense) agency’s mission is to create and nurture emerging technologies that will benefit the military.  BARDA is the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency, a unit of the HHS (Health and Human Services).  It’s supposed to develop countermeasures against terrorism- but unless we’ve classified the SARS-CoV-2 virus as a terrorist, BARDA’s mission is considerably broader than that legal prescription.

In Israel, the Directorate of Defense Research and Development is an arm of the military that looks for the best ways to kill folks or blow things up.  (Drones, stealth tanks, invisible jet fighters, etc.)  But, COVID-19 is also within its purview.  Since the pandemic hit, the Israeli Defense Ministry is pushing the Israeli high-tech and military-industrial complex to address the virus problem.  (Israel is effective at mobilizing its citizenry and corporate elements to respond to a crisis.  And, COVID-19 was no different.)

So, here comes the innovation.   A 1 minute breathalyzer test to detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus.  Developed by Dr. Gabby Sarusi at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

This is an electro-optical unit.  And, while the claims are that each test will run $ 50 (right now, in the early stages it’s closer to $ 100 ), either price is significantly less dear than the PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests that are being run in various university laboratories around the world.

Significantly, the unit can detect those who are asymptomatic, as well as those not yet manifesting the disease.  Nor does it have to be analyzed or tested in the laboratory.   And, the results are quick.  (No 5 day waits!  Results in about 20 to 60 seconds.) So, airports, border crossings, swimming pools, baseball stadia, and the like are able to test entrants for the disease.

Is the test perfect?  Heck, no.  It detects 90% of those with SARS-CoV-2 in their body.  That’s a 10% failure rate.  The failure is about evenly split between 5% false positive and 5% false negatives.  (Since I could not find any technical information about the device, I have no clue if this shortfall can be corrected, either.  But, if you remember my articles about the other tests- their accuracy is really no better. (PCR is about 80% accurate.)  And, they take days for results and big bucks for the test.)

(To be honest, I am less worried about the 5% false positive. Yeah, sure- it that were me, I’d be ticked off that I’d have to be quarantined waiting for the confirmatory test, but in the greater scheme of things, that’s pretty minor.  On the other hand, the 5% false negative result is what scares me more- that means [if we were to use this for all Americans, as an example, we could miss some 16 million folks carrying the SARS-CoV-2 virus!)

The technology behind this test protocol is pretty simple.  A virus is a nano-particle; one roughly 100nm to 140nm in size.  Because of its capsid (the outer covering of the virus), the virus manifests electrical properties that can be used to detect it.  So, photonics (that’s the physical science dealing with light)- and spectroscopic analysis are used to capitalize on the fact that the virus resonates in the THz (1 Hertz is 10^-6 MHz or 10^-12 THz) range.   This can be readily detected on the unique chip developed by Dr. Sarusi.  And, since it’s electo-optical, there are less interferences in the test protocols. The results are simply recorded as positive or negative.

Another advantage of this device is that no amplifying (i.e., duplicating many times) of the viral nucleic acid components is needed, which is why rapid detection  is possible.  That amplification requires expensive reactions, and time to allow for replication/amplification to occur.

Instead, a simple breath exhalation into the device (which contains the chip with thousands of sensors), which is then connected via the internet to the processing unit (this is an expensive component, running about  $ 400K).

Of course, the results can also be communicated to government authorities to deal with the positive patient.