COVID-19 Special

Responding to the call for battle against COVID-19

The scale and speed with which the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world demands urgent action. Among the academic community at NUS, the pandemic has catalysed a research revolution with interdisciplinary teams of engineers, scientists and health workers coming together to design and develop innovative solutions at an unprecedented pace. Notably, our faculty, researchers and students played key roles in driving innovations to meet challenges posed by COVID-19 on a broad range of fronts covering treatment, testing and infection prevention.

Advancing treatment using AI

Investigators from Biomedical Engineering at the N.1 Institute for Health have been using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to rapidly process the various possible treatment combinations and identify the best results for patients with

COVID-19.

Using a platform called IDentif. AI (pronounced “identify”), initially developed to find better treatments for cancer, the multidisciplinary team has been able to take 12 promising drugs and process billions of possible combinations and dosages at a speed that would be impossible using traditional medical trials.

“The strength of IDentif.AI is that we can perform one experiment and come out with a list of drug combinations for treatment within days,” said Professor Dean Ho, Head of Biomedical Engineering, and Director of the N.1 Institute for Health. “And if patients do not respond well to the first combinations of drugs, we can derive new combinations within days to re-optimise their care.” Using a machine about the size of a household toaster, a team at the NUS Institute for Health Innovation & Technology (iHealthtech) led by Professor Lim Chwee Teck from Biomedical Engineering has developed a system for testing patients quickly, easily and on location. This avoids the need for samples to be sent to specialised lab testing facilities, saving time, effort and cost.

The Epidax system is built around a specially designed chip and microfluidic technology that uses a smaller sample than standard diagnostic tests and returns results in around an hour. It was developed and tested from scratch in less than two months, despite the challenges researchers faced working under the restrictions imposed by Singapore’s Circuit Breaker.

Quick, simple and portable testing

Epidax, a rapid testing system for COVID-19 that gives results in an hour, is one of the several innovations NUS Engineers have contributed to the fight against the global pandemic.

3D-printed testing swabs

One challenge hampering efforts to expand mass testing has been a global shortage of nasal swabs. To address this, NUS Engineers joined forces with medics and industrial designers to rapidly develop new processes to mass produce swabs cheaply and accurately.

One kind of swab, named Python, is produced using 3D printing techniques developed by the NUS Centre for Additive Manufacturing (AM.NUS). 3D printing the swabs allows far faster production at scale than would be possible under traditional manufacturing techniques.

The team developed a special double helix design for the swab tip that has excellent fluid absorption properties and causes minimal pain for the patient when a sample is extracted from the back of the nasal cavity.

The Python swab was designed, developed, and had a patent filed in less than two months. Two local Singapore companies are now mass producing the swabs. Facial masks have become a vital tool in preventing transmission of COVID-19. But for frontline medical and care workers, most commonly available masks are uncomfortable to wear for extended periods or do not provide maximum protection.

Using the latest 3D printing techniques and advanced materials, a team led by Professor Jerry Fuh from Mechanical Engineering attached to the NUS Centre for Additive Manufacturing (AM.NUS) is working with healthcare workers to rapidly prototype a comfortable, ultra secure, reusable mask.

3D printing enables the team to rapidly produce and test design variations, whilst the advanced printing machines available at NUS allow the developers to test multimaterial combinations that deliver the optimum combination of comfort and effectiveness.

Prof Freddy Boey (centre, showing the swabs), and (from left) Dr Alfred Chia, Assoc Prof David Allen, and Assoc Prof Yen ChingChiuan are part of two NUS teams that developed three nasopharyngeal swab designs for COVID-19 testing.

NUS researchers have designed three nasopharyngeal swabs for COVID-19 testing: (from left) IM2, IM3 and Python.

Facial protection for the frontline

Computer rendering of the 3D-printed masks.

Shielding healthcare workers

Without effective barrier protection, treating patients infected with highly contagious pathogens like COVID-19 exposes healthcare workers to considerable risk. Procedures such as installing and removing tubes for assisted breathing can be especially risky.

To reduce the chances of infection spreading, NUS Engineering researchers led by Professor Freddy Boey, Deputy President (Innovation and Enterprise) and NUS Department of Materials Science and Engineering, played a pivotal role in a collaboration with doctors and frontline caregivers to develop a portable and easy to clean shield that is placed around the patient’s head during medical procedures.

Transparent, foldable and similar in appearance to a laboratory glove box, the DART, short for Droplet and Aerosol Reducing Tent, is equipped with an air extractor and filter at the top to further reduce the chances of infected droplets leaking out.

Working in close collaboration, the DART team developed the shield in less than two months, with prototypes being tested in hospitals across Singapore. A team led by Assistant Professor Shao Huilin from the NUS Institute for Health Innovation & Technology (iHealthtech) and Biomedical Engineering is modifying its enVision test kit – developed in 2018 – to detect the COVID-19 virus in as little as 30 minutes.

EnVision is a versatile platform that can conduct specific and sensitive screening and detection for a range of diseases, from infectious diseases and high-prevalence infections, to various types of cancers. Tests can be done at the point-of-care, so that disease monitoring or treatment can be administered in a timely manner to achieve better health outcomes.

Furthermore, results are easily visible – the assay turns from colourless to brown if a disease is present, and the intensity of the colour is proportional to the amount of the pathogen that is present.

The multidisciplinary team from NUS and NUH took less than two months to develop the Droplet and Aerosol Reducing Tent (DART).

Asst Prof Shao Huilin (centre) and team modified their enVision test kit to detect COVID-19 virus in under 30 minutes.

Rapid detection kits

Read more about this online. https://cde.nus.edu.sg/ nus-engineers-jointhe-battle-againstcovid-19/