CU Boulder researchers have developed a rapid, portable, saliva-based COVID-19 test able to return results in 45 minutes. Such a test might eventually be deployable in community settings like schools and factories.

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"We are facing a serious testing shortage in this country right now as more people want to get tested and diagnostics labs are overwhelmed," said Nicholas Meyerson, a postdoctoral associate in the Sawyer Lab at the BioFrontiers Institute at CU Boulder. "We've developed a test that could get results to people much faster."

The test, described in a preprint manuscript posted Friday on the online archive MedRxiv.org, is designed for widespread screening to help identify asymptomatic individuals. Research shows people infected with the virus but with no obvious symptoms make up as many as 70% of cases and can still spread disease. In this new test, a user spits in a tube, adds a solution to stabilize it then closes the lid and hands it off to testing staff. They process it through a simple system requiring little more than pipettes, a heating source and an enzyme mixture.