Development of a diagnostic test for the detection of human antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19)

Faculty-development competitive research grants program for 2021-2022 (Covid-19 project)

Here we propose to design a simple, cost-effective, robust and effective SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic tool based on anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody detection (Stadelbauer et al., 2020) for use in the resource-limited settings of Kazakhstan. If successful, the utility of this test could be used in formal clinical studies in the general population. The current tests are of a “rapid” kind, based on immunochromatography, the technology used for homebase pregnancy tests. Some of these tests are already being used in Kazakhstan on patients with clinical symptoms. While convenient and fast, there is widespread reports of a serious lack of sensitivity -as much as 30% of the samples are not unequivocally determined, as is widely reported-, which begs to focus on a different strategy. We propose to develop an Enzyme-linked Immunoassay (ELISA) based test to detect simultaneously IgG, IgM and IgA, benchmark and validate the test. If successful, it could be the basis for testing the principle on non-serum or blood based samples such as saliva and urine, commercializing the test or at least scaling it up for screening individuals in the population that have been exposed to SARSCoV-2 as serological surveillance, for epidemiological purposes, and evaluation of antibody responses to vaccines under development.