A teen from Connecticut won big in the recent Google Top Science Award for inventing a $25-worth affordable Ebola test card that can produce results in just 30 minutes. Olivia Hallisey, a junior high school student from Greenwich High School, created the Ebola Assay Card and she bested many others taking home $50,000 worth of scholarship funds from the giant tech company.
The Ebola virus outbreak which ravaged West Africa in 2014 and killing thousands of people has been controlled for months now. However, one of the predicaments that affected the early treatment of the disease is that, the available tests for the said disease were expensive and would take a long period of time before producing results. This dismayed the teen as she knows that prompt diagnosis could lead to increase in survival rates of patients infected with the potentially-deadly virus.
This made the 16-year old, who has a dream of becoming a doctor and joining Doctors Without Borders, come up with a brilliant idea of creating an affordable and fast detection method for Ebola, reports Tech Times.
Writing in her project's website, Hallisey said, "Current methods of Ebola detection utilize enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay ("ELISA") detection kits which cost approximately $1,00 each, require complex instrumentation, trained medical professionals to administer, and up to 12 hours from testing to diagnosis."
She also said that the kits require refrigeration which makes it difficult for transport from one place to another. In her project, she developed a 'stable and stored at room temperature' Ebola Assay Card (EAC) which requires no refrigeration and would produce results in just 30 minutes.
She added, "Ebola Assay Card (EAC) is readily applicable in detection of diseases such as HIV, Lyme, Yellow/Dengue Fevers and certain cancers, building on the proven stabilizing properties of silk fibroin, that will allow for water-activated detection of Ebola antigens, with detection limits that are analogous to current sandwich ELISA techniques."
She used silk fibers which contain stabilizing properties and current Ebola ELISA reagents. She combined all the properties of a regular Ebola test that would change the color of the card whenever proteins from the Ebola virus are present in the blood of the patient.
She hopes that her invention would be developed and become available in the market to help more people in the future.
