In mid-March, as the COVID-19 pandemic slammed down on America, it just so happened that our group at BBN had just finished sending DARPA a proposal for fast, cheap point-of-care testing for emerging diseases. So rather than wait for a response on the proposal, we just organized things up ourselves and started working on testing.
The test plan has evolved a bit as we've worked through details, as more information about the virus has emerged and as we've made sure manufacturing will be able to roll these things out at scale. In the end, as has just been announced, it looks like we'll be able to just have people spit out a bit of saliva for the test (no more nasal swabs!) and give accurate answers in less than an hour.
My own role in the project has been on the bioinformatics: the FAST-NA software I've written about here a few times before has been critical for fast and effective design of our detection targets, both ensuring that we will be able to detect all known variants of the virus and that we won't get false positives from other organisms. And I still love that FAST-NA's core is technology that has been repurposed from hunting for computer viruses to hunting for real ones.
It's not in the field yet, but we're on a good track, and I hope we'll be able to make a real contribution to helping manage the pandemic...
