Industrial Automation Magazine India

Harvard-MIT working on Face Masks that light up on detecting Covid-19

Published on : Monday 18-05-2020

The new mask which is a work-in-progress could detect coronavirus instantly with a light indicator on the mask.

A team of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University researchers is working on a material that produces a fluorescent signal when it detects droplets carrying the novel coronavirus. The face mask contains sensors that react to droplets when a person breathes, coughs or sneezes and in case of the wearer has coronavirus, there will be instant detection, speeding up sample collection. According to MIT researcher Jim Collins the work is part of an ongoing research at a bioengineering laboratory at MIT, which began developing sensors that could detect the Ebola virus when it was freeze-dried onto a piece of paper. Later it was expanded to address the Zika virus threat. The MIT-Harvard researchers further enhanced the technology in 2018. The sensors can now send signals when exposed to numerous viruses like SARS, measles, influenza, hepatitis C and West Nile. Now, it will be further tuned to identify coronavirus cases.

Moisture from mucus or saliva activates the sensors that will then seek a genetic material that binds to a virus. Researchers place the sensors on materials, like cloth, using a machine called a lyophiliser, which separates the moisture and the genetic material. However, the work is reportedly still in very early stages, though initial tests are encouraging. They plan to demonstrate the face mask to detect COVID-19 within the next few weeks.