High-speed train tech used to detect airborne viruses 

Researchers from the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Michigan State University (MSU) have invented a system that uses the same technology as high-speed trains to quickly and inexpensively detect airborne viruses. 

The team showed that a technique known as magnetic levitation can be used to easily collect and concentrate viruses from the air to help prevent future outbreaks of respiratory disease. The researchers published their work in the journal ACS Nano.

“It’s very important to have real-time management and real-time predictions in place for viruses,” says Morteza Mahmoudi, an associate professor in MSU’s Department of Radiology and Precision Health Program. “What we’ve developed is a system that could help us and other stakeholders get more information about the different types of viruses in the air we breathe.” 

“This could help identify that an environment is contaminated before a pandemic happens,” adds Sepideh Pakpour, an assistant professor of engineering who led the research team at the UBC Okanagan Campus.

In addition to serving as an early-warning system, the team’s new technique also could assist health officials and epidemiologists in better tracking and tracing exposure to viruses in public settings.

Pakpour and Mahmoudi first started this project applying magnetic levitation, or maglev, to respiratory viruses in 2018. The researchers noted in their report that almost half of lower respiratory tract infections are caused by viruses breathed in by people while indoors. 

When the coronavirus pandemic started, however, and as they learned that it was caused by an airborne virus, they knew they had to redouble their efforts. The team used a deactivated version of the coronavirus responsible for Covid-19 in their proof-of-concept report, along with H1N1 influenza and a virus known as bacteriophage MS2, which infects bacteria.

The system first collects air samples, then injects these samples into a fluid where maglev separates viruses from other particles. The isolated and purified viral contents are then passed along to other standard analytical techniques for identification – all in a matter of minutes. The approach is so straightforward that it could be used by nonexperts in a variety of settings, such as clinics and airports, the researchers emphasised. 

The team is taking the first steps toward commercialising its technology while simultaneously working to improve it. Although downstream techniques can identify which viruses are in a sample, one of the team’s future goals is refining the maglev step to distinguish between different viruses on its own. The researchers are also working towards heightening the sensitivity of their technique and detecting viruses at lower concentrations in air.

Nevertheless, the team is excited by what it has already been able to accomplish in its initial work and what this may enable other researchers to do. “Using maglev for disease detection and purifying viruses is brand new, and it could open up applications in many different fields,” Mahmoudi says. “This opens up a fundamentally new direction in analytical biochemistry.”