"Breath the new crown" becomes possible, scientists have developed rapid screening technology

　　"Breathing to test the new crown" becomes possible

　　My scientists developed rapid screening technology

　　◎Intern reporter Sun Mingyuan

　　There is no need to "poke the throat" or "poke the nostrils" or wait for 24 hours. Just exhale in a small bag for 30 seconds, and you can get the new crown test results in 5-10 minutes. With the efforts of Chinese scientists, this technology It is no longer a dream.

　　A paper recently published online in the international academic journal "Journal of Respiratory Research" shows that the team of Professor Maosheng from the School of Environment of Peking University cooperated with teams such as the Chaoyang District Center for Disease Control and Prevention of Beijing to integrate exhaled breath sampling, gas chromatography-ion migration Spectral detection and machine learning models have developed a non-invasive exhaled breath volatile organic compound fingerprint screening system for COVID-19 infection. The system has applied for a national invention patent.

　　Yaosheng explained the principle behind the technology to a reporter from Science and Technology Daily: Due to changes in energy consumption, the chemical composition of the breath exhaled by people infected with the new crown will be different.

Experiments have shown that the level of propanol in the exhaled breath of patients with COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases is significantly higher than that in healthy subjects, while the level of acetone in the exhaled breath of patients with COVID-19 is significantly lower than that in patients with other respiratory infections and healthy subjects.

The research team analyzed the exhaled breath samples of different control groups and their background ambient air, and identified 12 key endogenous VOCs (volatile organic compounds) markers.

These markers are the unique "fingerprints" for screening and identifying people with new crown infections, making them different from healthy people and patients with other respiratory diseases.

　　There is no need for any test reagents in the test. The subjects use disposable breathing bags and only need to breathe for 30 seconds to complete the sample collection.

After obtaining exhaled breath samples, the system combines support vector, gradient acceleration, and random forest three machine learning algorithms to model 12 key VOCs markers, and rapid screening of new crown patients can be achieved within 5-10 minutes.

Based on the existing data model, the specificity and sensitivity of detection have reached more than 95%.

Compared with nucleic acid detection, this method is not only simple and time-saving, but also very economical.

　　"Experiments have proved that this method is effective. The detection is not only fast, but also sensitive enough." Maosheng said, "From experiment to clinical, more sample size is needed." Previously participated in the study included 74 patients with new crown, 30 Cases of non-new coronary respiratory system infection patients, as well as 87 medical staff and healthy subjects.

At present, the non-invasive exhalation screening system for new crown infection is planning to expand the sample size and carry out further optimization and testing to achieve promotion and application.

　　Yao Maosheng added that the new crown nucleic acid test sometimes has the problem of "false negative".

In the prevention and control of the epidemic, false negatives (that is, the actual infection with the new crown but the test is negative) will bring huge hidden dangers, especially the risk of missed detection by lifting the isolation under the condition of false negative nucleic acid.

Many places and scenarios require rapid screening, such as high-level meetings, customs entry, special flights, isolated hotels, hospitals, etc.

In these places, the non-invasive exhalation screening system is expected to play an additional auxiliary role to fill the time and sensitivity of nucleic acid testing, achieve "double insurance" and reduce the risk of transmission of new coronary pneumonia.

　　According to international media reports, since 2020, scientific researchers in Singapore, Japan, Indonesia and other countries have developed the "New Breath Test" technology.

In this regard, Maosheng pointed out that the Chinese research team was the first to achieve this result.

　　"At the beginning of the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, we were developing this technology. In June 2020, we published the research results in the form of a preprint, which is the earliest internationally." Yao Maosheng emphasized.