Diagnostics Development and Novel Technology Development and Evaluation to Improve Diagnostic Testing Capabilities for COVID-19 Detection

The Department of the Air Force (AF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program has established a Direct to Phase II X20.R SBIR Commercial Solutions Opening including a specific call for Approach 5b: COVID Testing Field Deployable Test Kit (no refrigeration). Botanisol Analytics has long been engaged in the development of molecular diagnostic tools for data collection including virus screening. The project described herein proposes to calibrate those tools for detecting COVID-19 infected cells. Botanisol Analytics already has commercial, off-the-shelf hardware (COTS) products demonstrated to detect viruses in laboratory conditions with results published in multiple peer reviewed journals around the world.12 The project described in this proposal aims to rapidly calibrate and convert that hardware for use in COVID-19 disease screening in order to help contain and mitigate the spread of the virus in the fall and to help restart the economy.