Cardean Transistors™ Made Available to Companies and Government Agencies Willing To Build Handheld Coronavirus Detection Devices

Cardea Bio, a San Diego based (bio)technology company, has developed a novel technology combining small bits of biology and semiconductor electronics that can be leveraged to develop a rapid coronavirus handheld test device.

Graphene-based Biology-gated Transistors (Cardean Transistors) directly read the molecular signals of active biology using advanced electronics. This proprietary tech breakthrough can rapidly detect and identify disease markers, forever changing the tracking of current and future infectious diseases as it becomes near real-time and handheld.

The groundbreaking detection abilities of this technology have been published in numerous peer-reviewed publications including Nature Biomedical Engineering. Leveraging this innovation, a few partnership organizations have already initiated the work needed to integrate the Cardean Transistor into handheld devices, but more partners are needed.

Cardea is hereby actively reaching out to all large companies and government organizations looking to urgently bring a first-generation handheld Coronavirus detection device to market.

Background information:

Biological systems communicate via signals called molecular interactions. With viruses, those molecular interactions are carried via RNA and protein signals. What the world needs right now is the ability to detect those signals via a handheld tool - in real time - across potentially hundreds of thousands of people simultaneously. These simple yet powerful devices must be connected to the internet for cloud analysis software to enable immediate digital insights to the otherwise invisible virus attack. While semiconductor electronics would appear to be an effective way to detect these signals, silicon is not bio-compatible - meaning it does not function when exposed directly to human and viral samples.

Graphene is a bio-compatible nanomaterial that is an excellent semiconductor like silicon, that can be used in production of electronics transistors. Cardean Transistors, properly configured, can intercept and read out the molecular interactions of biological signaling. Cardea has effectively enabled a new tech-breakthrough, and is ready and willing to partner with companies and government agencies to bring this innovation to the markets in need around the world.

These partnerships will allow for rapid identification and data sharing, leading to a reality of everybody having actionable information available.

Cardea brings significant advantages compared to existing virus testing modalities:

1) Point of Care: Samples do not need to be taken to a lab as the detecting technology fits inside a handheld device using a “lab on a chip” type of technology.

2) Additional Actionable Information: The technology can allow for the testing of multiple molecular signals of interest at the same time. For example, the technology could be used to differentiate if a patient is infected with coronavirus or just the influenza while also testing to see if the individual is already immune to a specific coronavirus strain. Common biological testing approaches, such as PCR and ELISA, are compatible with Cardea technology and in many cases, the long wait-times and extra reagents required of these techniques can be removed by building the assay on a Cardean transistor.

3) A Detection Technology with More Form Factors and Use Cases: The form factors and use cases in which the technology can be integrated are numerous. Other than handheld devices, a version of the technology can be built to e.g. sit in a toilet for ongoing monitoring or as a gate-system in the waiting rooms of hospitals.

The Cardea (bio)technology has been well characterized and was recently recognized in more world-renowned, peer-reviewed journals. Specifically, in June 2019 Cardea’s CRISPR-Chip (a Cardean Transistor version) was the cover story in Nature Biomedical Engineering and became the most read publication in 2019. In an impartial reaction to that paper, Dr. Can Dincer from the Laboratory for Sensors, Department of Microsystems Engineering (IMTEK) at the University of Freiburg noted in Nature News & Views: “The prevalence and spread of antimicrobial resistance worldwide, the (re)emergence of infectious disease outbreaks most recently of Dengue and Zika (…) demand further technology development in nucleic acid testing. (…) CRISPR technology enables simple and easily scalable approaches for building biosensing devices for a wide range of targets including viruses, bacteria, and cancer mutations.”

Cardea’s CEO Michael Heltzen states, “Our Cardean Transistors are incorporated with the natural search power of CRISPR, creating the opportunity to detect the coronavirus faster and more effectively with the differentiated product advantages of being a handheld, fast, precise, and internet-connected device. This enables for the first time the use of cloud computing and other Internet-like applications for life science test results without having to send a sample back to a lab and wait for days before you have the result.”

Heltzen continues, “We strongly believe that we are holding a critical component to combat the current, but also future, virus attacks. Having said that, we need the support of large companies and government organizations to get this new type of technology in the hands of the masses.”