Russian scientists from Moscow State University, in collaboration with colleagues from the Russian Academy of Sciences, managed to create an ultra-fast test that
To conduct the new test, scientists applynanostructured silver, which, in turn, is specific to the influenza A virus of any strain, on silicon oxide. When introduced into a biological fluid, aptamers selectively combine with the virus. Next, additional aptamer molecules are applied to the sensor with viruses in order to subsequently transfer the substrate with aptamers and viruses to a spectrometer, with the help of which the presence of a virus in the body is detected.
”The sensitivity of our method is comparable to that alreadyexisting methods - we determine the presence of at least 10,000 viruses in a sample of biological fluid. While we are testing our methodology on a model fluid of chicken embryos infected with influenza viruses of various strains. In the future, we can reliably determine not only the influenza A virus using SERS. We plan to apply aptamers specific to other viruses on a metal substrate, ”shared Anastasia Novoseltseva, one of the co-authors of the study, a graduate student in the chemistry department of Moscow State University.