Review paper summarizes diagnostic tools and surveillance for COVID19

Prof. Warren Chan (IBBME, Donnelly Centre), Dr. Samira Mubareka (Sunnybrook Hospital), Dr. Jonathan Gubbay (Public Health Ontario) and their trainees have summarized current diagnostic tools for detecting and surveilling COVID-19 in the journal ACS Nano. This article aims to guide researchers in developing COVID19 diagnostics by discussing current and emerging diagnostic tools.

“As a diagnostic developer, we were not sure where to start in the development process at the end of January. Our team of researchers thought it’s important to summarize the current state of COVID-19 diagnostics.” says Professor Warren Chan at the University of Toronto, who is currently working on diagnostic devices for infectious disease detection. “Information organized in a thorough review will better guide us in diagnostic development.”

Early detection of COVID19 is essential in managing the virus spread across Canada. This is evident by the expedition of testing kits by Health Canada, and the wide practice of hospital testing of at-risk populations.