New optical biosensor technology rapidly detect monkeypox | CPT PPP Coverage

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With the urgent need for faster and more effective diagnostic tools to detect Monkeypox, researchers have pioneered an innovative detection system. The team at the University of California San Diego and Boston University have developed an optical biosensor that can swiftly detect monkeypox.

Monkeypox virus (MPXV) is a double-stranded DNA virus belonging to the Orthopoxvirus genus. Earlier it was considered a rare sporadic disease, limited to animals only. However, the recent outbreak was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by WHO.

Additionally, a rare fatal variant was responsible for the demise of 5% of reported patients in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Taking its severity into consideration, it is vital to have a timely diagnosis and isolate infected individuals.

However, MPXV’s symptoms like skin lesions, fever, headache, or muscle soreness can easily be mistaken for other infections. Therefore, the need for a molecular-based diagnosis of monkeypox has emerged.

The lead author says, “So just by looking at the patient, it is not easy for clinicians to distinguish monkeypox from these other diseases.“

Until now, the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is the only approved method of diagnosing mpox. However, the PCR method is quite expensive and requires days to weeks to come up with the test results. Additionally, the PCR shows a false negative report in case of genome deletion.

Since optical sensors have long been used to detect viruses, researchers developed a new optical biosensor. This new approach uses a Pixel-Diversity interferometric reflectance imaging sensor (PD-IRIS). IRIS leverages light interference from an optically transparent thin film to detect the virus.

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Researchers used the lesions of a patient with laboratory-confirmed mpox. These lesions were modified into a virus-antibody complex. When lesions were placed on the sensor, red and blue lights were emitted whenever the virus-antibody nanoparticles were detected.

As the herpes simplex and cowpox viruses have similar clinical presentation, researchers sampled them as well. Interestingly, the sensor efficiently discriminated the mpox from other viruses.

“The chip would be the same. The only thing that would be different here is the binding antibody that would be specific for a particular virus,” says Ray.

The PD-IRIS can enhance the diagnosing speed, and effectively process the high amount of samples. This cost-effective technology could help in slowing down the rate of spreading.

“Within two minutes, we can tell whether someone has monkeypox or not. From collecting the virus samples to getting the real-time data takes around 20 minutes,” said Ray.

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Journal Reference

1. Aslan, M., Seymour, E., Brickner, H., Clark, A. E., Celebi, I., Townsend, M. B., Satheshkumar, P. S., Riley, M., Carlin, A. F., Ünlü, M. S., & Ray, P. (2025). A label-free optical biosensor-based point-of-care test for the rapid detection of Monkeypox virus. Biosensors and Bioelectronics, 269, 116932. DOI: 10.1016/j.bios.2024.116932