Imperial College London and UK diagnostics firm Intelligent Fingerprinting have joined the fight against the coronavirus. The two organisations have confirmed to pooling their resources to develop a simple 10-minute Covid-19 fingerprint test using Fingerprinting Intelligence's existing technology, which allows non-medical professionals to carry out the test.
The test collects sweat from the finger, which is then read by a portable DSR-Plus analysis unit. The kit provides a positive or negative result onscreen in 10 minutes. Researchers at Imperial College will work on validating the firm's testing approach to accelerate development.
Intelligent Fingerprinting Executive Chairman Philip Hand said: "Bringing together our joint expertise will greatly enhance the potential of delivering this ground-breaking testing solution in a meaningful timeframe."
Lord Darzi, director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London, said: "Adding a rapid point of care testing capacity would help us to get much closer to understanding the spread of the virus. Fingerprint testing using a portable system would also be particularly valuable in supporting simple and easy testing by non-medically trained staff at multiple sites across the UK, such as care homes and workplaces."