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Detecting Signals from RT-LAMP assays with multispectral sensors
Class of 2022
Major
Biology – Physics
Minor
Mathematics
Advisor

Support

Sponsoring Department
Semester
Summer 2021
Description

Common tests that are used for biosensing are ones that involve a color change. The existing methods that are used to detect the color change can be inconvenient in terms of size, cost, and requirements for specialized training. The method that we suggest, which was tested in this research project, is taking colorimetric readings with a multispectral sensor. These sensors are inexpensive, portable, customizable, and do not require extra steps, such as wavelength calibration or image processing. We chose to test the multispectral sensor with the products of an RT-LAMP assay as it has been shown in some cases to be as effective a method for detecting specific viral RNA as RT-PCR, one of the gold standards of detection, while being less complicated to carry out. This assay shows whether a sample contains the target viral RNA with a color change from pink to yellow. We wanted to see if the multispectral sensor could differentiate between reactions of varying concentrations of viral RNA and a no-template control through taking transmission intensity readings with the sensor and comparing its performance against a commercial spectrometer.

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