Norovirus has returned to the headlines following the latest outbreak at the PyeongChang Olympics in South Korea. Researchers at Bionano Laboratory in Guelph, Canada are trying to prevent such outbreaks with the development of a nanotechnology-based biosensor that can identify foodborne viruses at the point of care.

“Our nanotech biosensor boasts of a microfluidic platform duly integrated with graphene-gold nano-composite aptasensor that has shown to help with one-step norovirus detection. We have been able to detection the norovirus with in an hour with superior sensitivity with our state-of-the art device.” – Suresh Neethirajan, Bionano Lab

Designed for use in the field, the paper-based microfluidic device has a screen-printed carbon electrode that enables electrochemical virus detection within an hour. Its chip is packed with silica microbeads zones to filter and enrich a Norovirus-infected sample. The researchers also state that the biosensor is designed to be simple and cost effective. They have published two papers demonstrating the effectiveness of the device, one in Microchimica Acta (Apramer-based fluorometric determination of norovirus using paper-based microfluidic device) and the other in Biosensors and Bioelectronics.