Perspectives on electrochemical biosensing of COVID-19

Luong, Albert D.; Buzid, Alyah; Vashist, Sandeep K.; Luong, John H.T.

Rapid detection of human coronavirus 2019, termed as SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19 infection is urgently needed for containment strategy due to its unprecedented spreading. Novel biosensors can be deployed in remote clinical settings without central facilities for infection screening. Electrochemical biosensors serve as analytical tools for rapid detection of viral structure proteins, mainly spike (S) and nucleocapsid (N) proteins, human immune responses, reactive oxygen species (ROS), viral ribonucleic acid, polymerase chain reaction byproducts, and other potential biomarkers. The development of point of care testing (POCT) devices is challenging due to the requirement of extensive validation, a time-consuming and expensive step. Together with specific biorecognition molecules, nanomaterials enabled-based biosensors have emerged for the fast detection of early viral infections.