Cellex, which specializes in point-of-care testing, and Gauss, a developer of computer vision applications for healthcare, announced a partnership to launch a rapid, at-home and point-of-care COVID-19 antigen test.
If authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), the test would be the first allowing people to test themselves for active COVID-19 infection and receive rapid results within the confines of their own home or similar user environments, Gauss said.
Cellex is now in advanced clinical trials with a rapid antigen test that targets the nucleocapsid (N) protein on the SARS-CoV-2 virus and has demonstrated nearly 90 percent sensitivity and 100 percent specificity in early trials, according to Gauss.
To perform at-home testing, users follow step-by-step video instructions in the AI-powered app from Gauss to correctly collect a nasal swab sample and perform the rapid antigen test. Within 15 minutes, the app prompts the user to scan their rapid test with their smartphone and then processes the image with an end-to-end neural network architecture optimized for the Cellex assay, Gauss said. The app informs the user if the test result is negative or positive for SARS-CoV-2 antigens within seconds.
