The system is made up of a smartphone, an external catalytic microchip device and software. Body fluid samples are placed into a channel on the catalytic microchip device, which is then doused with a small amount of hydrogen peroxide. The resulting reaction leads to the formation of bubbles. The bubbles develop in unique patterns based in part on viruses in the fluid sample. The user points their smartphone camera at the bubbling sample and launches the deep-learning algorithm that has already been trained to identify the patterns and thereby recognize the presence of viruses. The whole process takes approximately 50 minutes. The researchers have thus far taught their system to recognize just three viruses, Zika and hepatitis B and C. But testing shows the system to be 99% accurate.
