Binghamton Research Days Student Presentations
Development of Assays for SARS-CoV-2 Detection and Disease Severity Risk Assessment
Development of Assays for SARS-CoV-2 Detection and Disease Severity Risk Assessment
Palmer Ernst (Senior, Biochemistry and Integrative Neuroscience); Corrine Stahura (Graduate, PharmD candidate)
Palmer Ernst (Senior, Biochemistry and Integrative Neuroscience); Corrine Stahura (Graduate, PharmD candidate)
Mentors: Katie Edwards, Pharmaceutical Sciences
Mentors: Katie Edwards, Pharmaceutical Sciences
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has yielded over 126,000,000 confirmed cases worldwide, including more than 2,750,000 deaths as of March 26th, 2021 with marked negative impacts on the economy, healthcare, education, and society at large. Within, our work focused on the development of assays to diagnose the presence of the causative agent (SARS-CoV-2) and assess the risk of disease severity. Risk can be assessed using C‐reactive protein (CRP) which acts as an early marker of inflammation and infection with elevated levels found in 86% of patients with severe COVID-19. Additionally, CRP concentration above a threshold level of 26.9 mg/L marks a high risk for non-severe cases to progress to severe cases. The development and performance characterization of several novel assay formats for detecting SARS-CoV-2 antigens and CRP is ongoing, including high-throughput fluorescence detection for laboratory-based analyses as well as a lateral flow assay and a latex agglutination test providing point-of-care-based semi-quantitative assays. In our work with CRP, we aim to develop an alternative to Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assays (ELISAs) using anti-CRP conjugated europium chelate particles as a detection method to quantitatively measure CRP levels with high sensitivity and specificity.
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has yielded over 126,000,000 confirmed cases worldwide, including more than 2,750,000 deaths as of March 26th, 2021 with marked negative impacts on the economy, healthcare, education, and society at large. Within, our work focused on the development of assays to diagnose the presence of the causative agent (SARS-CoV-2) and assess the risk of disease severity. Risk can be assessed using C‐reactive protein (CRP) which acts as an early marker of inflammation and infection with elevated levels found in 86% of patients with severe COVID-19. Additionally, CRP concentration above a threshold level of 26.9 mg/L marks a high risk for non-severe cases to progress to severe cases. The development and performance characterization of several novel assay formats for detecting SARS-CoV-2 antigens and CRP is ongoing, including high-throughput fluorescence detection for laboratory-based analyses as well as a lateral flow assay and a latex agglutination test providing point-of-care-based semi-quantitative assays. In our work with CRP, we aim to develop an alternative to Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assays (ELISAs) using anti-CRP conjugated europium chelate particles as a detection method to quantitatively measure CRP levels with high sensitivity and specificity.