The University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy reports that the Novel Coronavirus is likely to continue affecting health and wealth until it is eradicated in two years. With the world economy opening up in a phased manner despite no vaccine to COVID19, a test kit for home use is required during periodic resurgences of the disease. Indian American Professor Piyush Jain is at the helm of a project that develops a rapid test kit related to COVID19 for home use.
Picture Credit: Ufhealth.org/news
Piyush Jain is a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Florida. The rapid test for COVID19 at home is as easy to use as a pregnancy test strip. The test kit includes a very small strip with a visual indicator that signals whether a person has the Coronavirus in his/her body. Reportedly, the test has given promising results during trial on a pilot basis. Indian American Professor Piyush Jain has had sleepless nights when the test was at the development stage in his lab.
The exponential growth in the number of COVID19 cases across the United States drove him to hit upon the idea of having a strip-based system that will help people detect whether they are infected or not in 15-20 minutes. With a handy COVID19 test for home use, there won’t be any need to visit a healthcare facility while the stay-at-home order is in place.
As the test developed by Prof. Piyush Jain detects the presence of the virus itself, not that of its antibodies in a person, early detection of the Novel Coronavirus can help people with active infection quarantine themselves. So, the COVID19 test for home use has an obvious advantage over antibody testing that does not help to make out whether a person is currently infected or was infected in the recent past.
Piyush Jain, who moved to the University of Florida from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2018, is all set to try the breakthrough COVID19 test on humans, with due permission from the authorities. Once the next-generation home test for Novel Coronavirus is approved for commercial use, he plans on working towards developing a COVID19 vaccine. Piyush Jain who majored in bimolecular engineering and pharmaceutical science is also focused on augmenting the quality of CRISPR-based testing and its application to various life-threatening diseases.
Indeed! Every seventh doctor in the US is Indian, and they are working hard as soldiers in the fight against COVID19.
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