Presenting Author Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Since the emergence of COVID-19, the focus has been on curing, vaccinating against, and detecting the virus that spread into virtually every community. With that effort came the need for not just increased testing but also cheap and fast testing. One possible solution is a point-of-care device. Similar to a pregnancy test, a device in which users could deposit a saliva sample and receive a measurable result could be accessible to millions all over the world. However, building such a device requires a lot of forethought, including any pre-treatment of the sample. The goal of pre-treatment, in this case, is to lessen the variability and complexity of the saliva for testing. Egg white and glycerol solutions were prepared to mimic saliva and determine if viscosity played a role in flux or possible membrane fouling using a custom flux setup designed in the lab for a method to ready samples for a rapid SARS-CoV-2 test. By comparing flux rate of fluorescein-labeled bovine serum albumin (BSA) (0.1 g/L) in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) (pH 7.4, 15mM), buffer/glycerol solutions, and egg white solutions through a membrane, the effect of viscosity on fouling of black polycarbonate track-etched (BPCTE) membranes was observed. Fluorescence imaging of BPCTE membranes allowed for further observation of fouling. Higher viscosity solutions showed a decrease in the measured flux, and no fouling occurred for any solutions. However, egg whites and imaging indicated alternate implications of pre-treatment for saliva-based rapid tests.
