Portable device delivers rapid testing for mosquito-borne viruses

With a lot of ingenuity, some creative engineering and a few off-the-shelf items, a University of Florida team led by a virologist and an engineer has created an inexpensive, quick and accurate handheld device that can detect seven mosquito-borne illnesses

John Lednicky, Ph.D., a virologist in the UF College of Public Health and Health Professions whose interests include mosquito-borne viruses, and Z. Hugh Fan, Ph.D., a mechanical/biomedical engineer at the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering, describe the device’s development with colleagues in the journal Analytical Chemistry.

“We wanted to create a diagnostic test that could distinguish between viruses that was relatively quick, cheap and didn’t require expensive instrumentation or a lot of training,” said Lednicky, a research professor in the Department of Environmental and Global Health.

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