The XPRIZE Rapid Covid Testing challenge selects ‘Corona Detective’ and 3 other projects on Just One Giant Lab as semi-finalists
The current standard for SARS CoV-2 laboratory diagnostics is qRT-PCR, a quantitative nucleic acid amplification method that is expensive, laborious and not readily scalable or accessible to many people living in low-resource settings.
A group of community scientists, led by Rachel Aronoff, Francisco Javier Quero Lombardero, and Guy Aidelberg, is working to change that. They joined the OpenCovid19 initiative on Just One Giant Lab (JOGL) to develop an open, easy to use, rapid, reliable and economical method that could be used anywhere to detect SARS-CoV-2, without the need of expensive, complex equipment or highly trained laboratory personnel.
Their strategy is adapted from ‘GMO Detective’, a low-cost and open community science project for detection of transgenic elements in food and plants, for both scientific and educational purposes.
The Do-It-Together SARS CoV-2 Detective, or Corona Detective for short, has recently been selected as a semi-finalist in the XPRIZE Rapid COVID Testing challenge, along with the following projects on JOGL: One-hour Covid Test using LAMP, COVID-ALERT (Accessible LAMP-Enabled Rapid Test), and Corona Hunter (Check out our interview with Ali Bektas)! Congratulations to the teams!
To learn more about Corona Detective, we spoke with Rachel Aronoff by email.
Congratulations for being selected as a semi-finalist for the XPRIZE Rapid Covid Testing challenge! When did you join the challenge?
Our team joined JOGL’s Open Covid-19 Initiative by March and our project was up with a front-end web page in April already for the first round of funding. We were happy that results were so promising, and enjoyed the international collaborations (both within JOGL and in the more academic/biotech context of Chris Mason’s GLAMP group), which we think benefited everyone. We applied for the XPRIZE in time for its deadline (September 8) and are glad to have been selected as one of their 200 semi-finalists, who will get to test their first set of samples (x2 96-well plates of unknown liquids).
What do you think about the XPRIZE challenge overall? What do you think about the rules and requirements, the judging criteria to determine the winners? Do you wish something was different?
So far it feels like the challenge is still evolving as it goes, similar to every country’s response to the pandemic. This is sensible, as simply having the first sample set of unknown liquids to reach all teams while retaining their molecular integrity is going to be a real logistical challenge. If this succeeds, however, fair judging criteria seem very probable, to get to the 20 finalists.
It is especially appreciated that these initial tests will not require biosafety lab 2 infrastructure as several of our partners have no access to this. Also, their use of protocols.io for the team protocols seems very wise; and it’s great to have our Corona Detective production and user protocols out there with DOIs and everything. The only difference offhand we might suggest is more flexibility about how many test sets can be sent to partners (see below for more on this).
Can you tell us a little about your project? What is the coolest thing about it? Who is helping you?
We adapted a very sensitive method of molecular amplification with a special quenched fluorescence detection strategy in order to identify both the virus causing covid-19 and an internal control gene (the ‘extraction’ control).
The coolest thing is that the components can be freeze-dried and sent anywhere without cold chain dependence. Also, detection is very sensitive and specific and looks amazing (fluorescence), even on a very simple DIY detector. Finally, we have controls included in Corona Detective for extra confidence and long-term goals to use open-source components (rather than commercial enzymes)!
Some people think our teaser video for the XPRIZE is super cool (but actually it is very corny, and the iMovie ‘action preview’ template was simply followed):
Help from all our colleagues and the JOGL team has been great, over these last months. In the optional video for the XPRIZE application, in fact, we included the recording of our JOGL Live event for people who want to learn more about the method and our open science results (and everyone who is ready to watch more than just one minute with exciting music).
What kinds of challenges are you facing? Are you close to achieving your goals?
We have to successfully show that the freeze-dried tubes are stable and robust after ordinary shipments. Guy Aidelberg, who lives in Paris, does the freeze-drying, and then we send the samples to our partners in places as far away as Cameroon, Chile, and Sri Lanka, for clinical validation.
The XPRIZE organizers said they could only send one set of samples to semi-finalist teams, not to all our colleagues. Nonetheless, Chris Mason (one of the judges, too, not only the organizer of the GLAMP group) agreed that if another team was specifically linked to ours, it could also receive a second set. So, the big challenge right now is to make sure everyone is on-board.
We will have a call this afternoon (14/9) about this, as addresses for shipment have to be sent by Wednesday (16/9). We hope we will achieve our goals of successfully identifying positive and negative samples in the unknown test sets. Additionally, however, sample treatment is still a big challenge; and in fact, we plan to do at least two types of treatments (one basically ‘straight’ and one to concentrate the unknowns) for each sample… Lots of work ahead.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
We are especially keen on open participatory research for everyone and making sure people understand the basis of understanding by the scientific method. It’s very problematic when a media article says one thing is ‘proven’ one day, and the opposite thing the next day, particularly these days.
To understand how something works, we need to design experiments with a control and a hypothesis. Results might support or refute the hypothesis, leading you to rethink and develop a new hypothesis. Working towards the truth requires following evidence and results (not being biased by your beliefs, and realizing you may actually never really prove anything in the end).
Rejection of evidence by people who prefer to spread conspiracy theories will not help end this pandemic. However, we hope a more effective testing capacity (with Corona Detective!?) will indeed make a big difference.
Much more could also be mentioned about dynamic genomic integrity in cells, environmental risks, and public health, the democratization of research, and support of such efforts, but maybe this is long enough for now. Still, all of these topics are very important and worth further discussion… (in another article? :)
Stay tuned for our upcoming interviews with team members of the other XPRIZE projects on Just One Giant Lab. Check out our interview with Ali Bektas of COVID-ALERT
JOGL is developing a virtual laboratory where users can collaborate and innovate in order to solve problems that address the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). You can join us at https://jogl.io/
