--- title: There's Now a Rapid, Accurate COVID-19 Air Detector description: A new device from researchers at Washington University St. Louis can detect COVID-19 in the air, which can help stop the spread of the virus. canonical: https://time.com/6294198/covid-19-air-detector/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-07-13T17:47:55.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:51:05.308Z article:section: Health og:title: There's Now a Rapid, Accurate COVID-19 Air Detector og:description: A new device from can detect COVID-19 in the air, which can help stop the spread of the virus. og:url: https://time.com/6294198/covid-19-air-detector/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt30882daa72686a99/698a3e9fb3fce3419c0caa30/GettyImages-93192576.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2121 og:image:height: 1193 og:image:alt: Pedestrians walking in a public square, Manhattan, New York City, NY, USA og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: There's Now a Rapid, Accurate COVID-19 Air Detector twitter:description: A new device from can detect COVID-19 in the air, which can help stop the spread of the virus. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt30882daa72686a99/698a3e9fb3fce3419c0caa30/GettyImages-93192576.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # There's Now a Rapid, Accurate COVID-19 Air Detector > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ## Video: COVID-Vaccine Technology Could Help to Save Dying Bee Colonies [Watch (HLS stream): COVID-Vaccine Technology Could Help to Save Dying Bee Colonies](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/kUaGlc14.m3u8) (4:20)  _Published 2023-06-29. American beekeepers lost nearly half their managed bee colonies this year. Climate change, pesticide-laden crops, and declining wild plant biodiversity all play a role in honeybee colony death, but the biggest threat is the varroa destructor, an invasive, parasitic mite smaller than a pin head that nonetheless extracts a big toll from the bees it feeds upon._  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Jul 13, 2023 5:47 PM UTC  fStop—Getty Images  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Jul 13, 2023 5:47 PM UTC The COVID-19 pandemic will forever be associated with unprecedented lockdowns and inconveniences such as wearing masks in public. And that’s largely because health experts had no idea exactly where the SARS-CoV-2 virus was lurking, and how risky crowded settings such as workplaces, classrooms, and public transportation were. But what if an easy-to-use, mobile device could detect, in real time, SARS-CoV-2 in a given space? That would give people confidence to go maskless, if no virus were floating around, or take precautions like wearing a mask or avoid the setting altogether if the virus was detected. Researchers at Washington University St. Louis [report in ](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39419-z)[_Nature Communications_](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39419-z) that they have done just that, with a prototype device about the size of a microwave that can pick up signs of SARS-CoV-2 in about five minutes. Led by Rajan Chakrabarty, associate professor of energy, environmental, and chemical engineering, the team wanted to improve on the cumbersome process of relying on commercial air detectors that can only sample air and require additional PCR testing of the samples that can take as long as 24 hours to return results. The devices are also costly, ranging from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars per unit. After three years, they have developed a device that they say performs even better than the commercial methods in lab testing, and could be scaled to cost a few cents per test. --- ### More from TIME --- The key to the new COVID-19 detector’s success is a super-fast method of circulating air into the device that mimics a cyclone. It pulls air at about a thousand liters a minute from the environment, creating a conical shape that traps any particles circulating in that flow. The device is equipped with a biosensor that does two things. First it takes advantage of tiny molecules obtained from llamas that stick exceptionally well to the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 to pull out any virus that might be present. Next, an electric current is passed through the biosensor and causes oxidation of a specific amino acid in the spike protein, the final reaction that verifies the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. In lab tests, the device was 77% to 83% accurate in detecting the COVID-19 virus, including its latest variants. (It detects SARS-CoV-2, but cannot distinguish between the different variants.) When the researchers tested different concentrations of virus on their device and two commercially available air detectors, theirs was the only one able to detect low levels of viral genetic material in the form of RNA. The team also sent prototypes to two people who tested positive for COVID-19 and who volunteered to use the device in their homes. The air samplers accurately detected the virus in their respective bedrooms after five minutes of sampling. Viral RNA exhaled or expelled by an infected person doesn’t remain in droplet form, but becomes aerosolized into particles five to 10 micrometers in diameter (for comparison, the diameter of a human hair is 40 to 70 micrometers). Given that a room with a single infected individual can contain as few as 10 RNA copies of the SARS-CoV-2 virus per cubic meter of air, the odds of picking up something that small in a typical room is about one in a million or one in a billion. “It’s like finding a needle in a haystack,” says Chakrabarty. But because this device filters the air at such a high velocity it greatly increases the chances of picking up those microscopic viral particles “The beauty of this detection technique is that it is ultra sensitive,” says Chakabarty. Based on tests in the lab, he says, it can likely detect the virus emitted from even a mildly infected person in a typical room. And, because the device is portable, Chakrabarty expects that it can be used anywhere people want immediate reports on whether the COVID-19 is present, including in homes. Building the detector cost his lab a few thousand dollars, but he anticipates that with mass production, the cost will come down significantly. One disease-detection company, Y2X Life Sciences, based in New York, is hoping to license the technology from the university to do just that. In addition to using the detector for immediate readings of COVID-19 in places like workspaces, classrooms, and airports— not to mention hospitals—Chakrabarty also anticipates the device can be part of building preventive public health strategies if they are installed in ducts to run 24 hours a day to detect virus on whole floors or even a small building. And if other diseases-causing viruses come along, the biosensor can be adjusted to detect those as well. Already, the research team is working on a device that could also identify influenza and RSV. ## Transcript We went from losing five to 16% of our business, we're losing up to 40 to 60% of our business now, but our biggest threat right now. Sorry everyone when the fight the fees they are creating open wounds when they fight on the afternoon of the fees they are creating a hotbed of infections because now you have all of these fees walking round in each other. And so for bees to be crawling around and trying to be doing their everyday activities, brood producing, honey, I don't have that picture in your mind, so that makes it incredibly difficult. We've used to form a gaseous form of gases at Kathy's respirators with the formic acid with you. But you get it on you and you scared to go home to the kids and everything struggling to control for years. And years ago, has it starting to feel really what we needed as a senator, in the tires on this battle is more Tools in our tool belt. What is treatment? If it comes in the form of sucrose, which is something the peacekeepers used as supplemental feeding for there. And there's not enough natural nectar from the flowers out there. But what is really doing? Is starting to be targeting the mic right now. We're in the trial phase and experimentation really encouraging results that I'm excited for Wednesday. One of the biggest difference is in the ER, and forces some of the control Hive. You can see much more clearly, the effects of viruses and malnutrition that they succumb to, which is we're leasing at 50% of Arby's right now. This year, I mean economically, how would it affect us to go back to lose it? 10% if I mean, we could probably run Les filles have less truck up and down the road Holland. Good Health East vs. Holland 25% of the bees. It's not going to make it. 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