Yoon Earns Honorable Mention in 'Create the Future' Design Contest

BME professor Jeong-Yeol Yoon has earned an honorable mention in the 2022 Create the Future Design Contest for his Smartphone-based COVID-19 Test. The test uses a smartphone microscope to analyze saliva samples and deliver results in about 10 minutes.

Yoon led a team that adapted an inexpensive method originally created to detect norovirus – the microbe famous for spreading on cruise ships. Traditional methods for detection of norovirus or other pathogens are often expensive, involve a large suite of laboratory equipment or require scientific expertise. The smartphone-based norovirus test developed at UA consists of a smartphone, a simple microscope and a piece of microfluidic paper – a wax-coated paper that guides the liquid sample to flow through specific channels. It is smaller and cheaper than other tests, with the components costing about $45.

"We've outlined it so that other scientists can basically repeat what we did and create a norovirus-detecting device," said Lane Breshears, a BME doctoral student in Yoon's lab. "Our goal is that if you want to adapt it for something else, like we've adapted it for COVID-19, that you have all the ingredients you need to basically make your own device."