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Researchers Developing Face Mask That Lights Up When Coronavirus Detected

Updated September 6, 2021

One of the biggest challenges to containing the spread of COVID-19 is the fact that people can be infectious and spreading the disease before they even know they have it. Because it affects everyone so differently, someone who never develops any symptoms at all can unknowingly spread it to someone who will be absolutely devastated by it. That's why testing is so important.

While testing for the disease has been ramped up, many nations still have trouble testing all the people who need to be tested, due largely to supply issues. As a result, usually only those displaying symptoms can receive a test. Even then, the results can take 24 hours for patients to hear, a crucial period of time when a person carrying the virus can be at their most infectious.

However, Harvard and MIT researchers are working on a solution that gets results faster, while also reducing the ability of a person to spread the disease: a face mask that lights up in the virus's presence.

Allen Institute

MIT bioengineer Jim Collins has plenty of experience working with infectious diseases. In 2014, he and his team, which included researchers from Harvard, developed a novel approach to testing for Ebola, freeze-drying a deactivated form of the virus onto a piece of paper.

As tests go, they were successful, inexpensive, easy to transport, and produced results quickly. A couple of years later, they adapted the technology to work with the Zika virus.

Now, they're looking to adapt it further to work with COVID-19, now adding a fluorescent element that lights up when it comes into contact with the virus.

Unsplash | Anastasiia Chepinska

Building it into a face mask would be ideal. In Collins's design, coughing, sneezing, or simply breathing can carry enough of the virus to make the mask light up within two to three hours of putting it on. At the same time, the mask would filter out virus-carrying particles and prevent them from infecting others.

He sees it as a better alternative to current testing and screening methods like temperature checks, which only work for those displaying symptoms.

Wikimedia | https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TH-COVID19_temperature-check_IMG_9843.jpg

"As we open up our transit system, you could envision it being used in airports as we go through security, as we wait to get on a plane," Collins told Business Insider. "You or I could use it on the way to and from work. Hospitals could use it for patients as they come in or wait in the waiting room as a pre-screen of who's infected."

Collins and his team already know that their idea can work in principle and in practice.

Wikimedia | https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Doctoringear.jpg

Their previous designs for Ebola and Zika tests didn't just work on paper - they worked on cloth, too.

"We used that to design wearable diagnostics that could be incorporated into a lab coat for a doctor, for instance, or protective gear for first responders or military personnel," he said.

It's important to note that in Collins's design, the fluorescence wouldn't be obvious to everyone around.

Unsplash | h heyerlein

It wouldn't be visible to the naked eye. Rather, the virus would only cause the face mask to light up when a special light called a fluorimeter is shone on it.

Collins says that a handheld fluorimeter that screeners could use to check a person's mask would cost "about a dollar."

The team at Collins's MIT lab still has a few kinks to work out and decisions to make.

Unsplash | Macau Photo Agency

For one thing, they have to choose whether to make masks with the virus-detecting material inside it, or develop a module that can be slipped inside any over-the-counter mask.

Collins said that they're still a few weeks away from being ready for trials to begin, but the goal is to have masks ready for distribution by the end of summer.

h/t: Business Insider, Allen Institute

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