I'm currently trying to develop a biosensor to detect covid19 infection. However, I don't want to be exposed to the real virus for a real practical test. Is there any way, to simulate viruses so that a researcher can use these simulators without worrying so much about being infected?
Maybe you could share a bit of info on how you envision such a sensor so you can get better answers from the different perspectives needed, from researchers from different fields.
For instance, from a computer science point of view, from your question I imagine you have two sides to the problem:
- the sensor, which is a physical device that measures some properties from your test subject (healthy or contaminated)
- the software component, which processes the signal from the sensor to give a boolean answer "contaminated or not"
On the sensor side, I'm afraid the answer to your question is "you can't" (unless you can send someone you have no direct or indirect contact with and retrieve the test results remotely)
On the software side, you should be able to do simulations as long as you have a clear picture of the kind of signal you'll get from the sensor and a good amount of data (including healthy, covid19 contaminated and other kinds of contaminations so you can do all the needed cross-checking)
Sadly, given we are in the first year of the pandemic, there is still lots of data missing (like how different strains develop in a multi-year study and so on)
I hope this helps and good luck with your research.
Hi Hadi
Looking at your question, I only think of Virus-Like-Particles (VLPs) which are non-infectious. Look at this article which might be of your interest
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fbioe.2020.00862/full
Also, look into
https://www.creative-biolabs.com/sars-cov-2-virus-like-particles-vlps.html
Best,
Kiran
Many thank for you Oswaldo, Kiran and Amer for your helpful answers and comments. VLPs is what I'm looking for. Thank you, Kiran for providing me with the company which offers them.
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