MIT and Harvard Engineers Create New Face Mask That Can Detect COVID-19 Infection

Engineers from MIT and Harvard have designed a prototype face mask that will allow the person wearing the mask to diagnose Covid-19 in about 90 minutes. The technology can also be used to design wearable sensors for a variety of other pathogens or toxic chemicals. Credit: Felice Frankel and MIT News Office

The sensor technology can also be used to make clothing that detects a variety of pathogens and other threats.

Engineers from MIT and Harvard University have designed a new face mask that can diagnose the wearer with Covid-19 in about 90 minutes. The masks are embedded with small disposable sensors that can be fitted into other face masks and can also be modified to detect other viruses.

The sensors are based on freeze-dried cellular machines that the research team previously developed for use in paper diagnostics for viruses such as Ebola and Zika. In a new study, the researchers showed that the sensors could be incorporated not only into face masks, but also clothing such as lab coats, potentially offering a new way to monitor health workers’ exposure to a variety of pathogens or other threats.

“We have shown that we can freeze-dry a wide range of synthetic biology sensors to detect viral or bacterial nucleic acids, as well as toxic chemicals, including nerve toxins. We envision that this platform could enable next-generation wearable biosensors for first responders, healthcare personnel and military personnel,” said James Collins, the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering and Science in MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) and Department of Biological Engineering and the study’s senior author.

The facemask sensors are designed to be activated by the wearer when ready to perform the test, and the results are displayed only on the inside of the mask for user privacy.

Peter Nguyen, a research scientist at Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, and Luis Soenksen, a Venture Builder at MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health and a former postdoctoral fellow at the Wyss Institute, are the lead authors of the paper. , which appears today in Nature Biotechnology.

wearable sensors

The new wearable sensors and diagnostic face mask are based on technology that Collins began developing several years ago. In 2014, he showed that proteins and nucleic acids needed to create synthetic gene networks that respond to specific target molecules can be embedded in paper, and he used this approach to create paper diagnostics for the Ebola and Zika viruses. In collaboration with Feng Zhang’s lab in 2017, Collins developed another cell-free sensor system known as SHERLOCK, which is based on CRISPR enzymes and enables highly sensitive detection of nucleic acids.

These cell-free circuit components are freeze-dried and remain stable for many months until rehydrated. When activated by water, they can interact with their target molecule, which can be any RNA or DNA sequence, as well as other types of molecules, producing a signal such as a change in color.

Researchers have built sensors inside the mask to detect viral particles in the breath of the person wearing the mask. The mask also contains a small reservoir of water that is released with the push of a button when the wearer is ready to perform the test. Credit: Courtesy of the Researchers

More recently, Collins and his colleagues began work on incorporating these sensors into textiles, with the goal of creating a lab coat for health professionals or others who may be exposed to pathogens.

First, Soenksen ran a screen of hundreds of different fabrics, from cotton and polyester to wool and silk, to find out which one might be compatible with this kind of sensor. “Eventually we identified a pair that is widely used in the fashion industry for making clothes,” he says. “The best was a combination of polyester and other synthetic fibers.”

To create wearable sensors, the researchers embedded their freeze-dried components in a small portion of this synthetic material, where they are surrounded by a ring of silicone elastomer. This compartmentalization prevents the sample from evaporating or diffusing away from the sensor. To demonstrate the technology, the researchers created a jacket that has about 30 of these sensors built into it.

They showed that a small splash of liquid containing viral particles, which mimics exposure to an infected patient, can hydrate the freeze-dried cell components and activate the sensor. The sensors can be designed to produce different types of signals, including a color change that can be seen with the naked eye, or a fluorescent or luminescent signal, which can be read with a portable spectrometer. The researchers also designed a portable spectrometer that can be integrated into the fabric, where it can read the results and transmit them wirelessly to a mobile device.

“This gives you an information feedback cycle that can track your environmental exposure and warn you and others about the exposure and where it happened,” says Nguyen.

A diagnostic face mask

When the researchers completed their work on the wearable sensors in early 2020, Covid-19 began to spread around the world, so they quickly decided to use their technology to diagnose the SARS-CoV-2 virus. to make.

To produce their diagnostic face mask, the researchers embedded freeze-dried SHERLOCK sensors in a paper mask. As with the wearable sensors, the freeze-dried components are surrounded by silicone elastomer. In this case, the sensors are placed on the inside of the mask so that they can detect viral particles in the breath of the person wearing the mask.

The mask also contains a small reservoir of water that is released with the push of a button when the wearer is ready to perform the test. This hydrates the freeze-dried components of the SARS-CoV-2 sensor, which analyzes accumulated breath droplets on the inside of the mask and provides a result within 90 minutes.

“This test is as sensitive as the gold standard high-sensitivity PCR tests, but it is just as fast as the antigen tests used for rapid analysis of Covid-19,” Nguyen said.

The prototypes developed in this study have sensors placed on the inside of the mask to detect a user’s status, as well as sensors placed on the outside of garments to detect environmental exposure. The researchers could also trade in sensors for other pathogens, including flu, Ebola and Zika, or sensors they’ve developed to detect organophosphate nerve agents.

“Through these demonstrations, we have reduced the functionality of state-of-the-art molecular testing facilities to a format compatible with portable scenarios for a variety of applications,” says Soenksen.

The researchers have applied for a patent on the technology and now hope to partner with a company to further develop the sensors. The face mask is most likely the first application that could be made available, Collins says.

“I think the face mask is probably the most advanced and closest to a product. We’ve already had a lot of interest from outside groups who want to take our prototyping efforts and turn it into an approved, marketed product,” he says.

The research was funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency; the Paul G. Allen Frontiers group; the Wyss Institute; Johnson and Johnson Innovation JLABS; the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard; and the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation.