The September Issue of SLAS Discovery Highlights a Label-Free SERS Method in Detecting SARS-CoV-2 and More

Oak Brook, IL – The September issue of SLAS Discovery is now available open access on ScienceDirect.

The pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus disrupted global operations and societal living while claiming the lives of millions across the globe. The ability to detect SARS-CoV-2 during the early stages was crucial in combatting the virus. Although antigen tests have proven to be an invaluable tool for rapid testing of SARS-CoV-2 infections, this method is limited in scope and is unable to provide fingerprint identification of the spike protein, which is necessary to identify variants of the virus.

The team of researchers in the study “Towards Label-free detection of viral disease agents through their cell surface proteins: Rapid screening SARS-CoV-2 in biological specimens” by Nihal, et al., present a highly specific biosensing method using surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) to detect the cysteine residues of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein subunit, S1 protein. The researchers were able to consistently detect the cysteine residues in human blood plasma, mucus and saliva samples spiked with the S1 protein using their label-free SERS method.

Access the September issue of SLAS Discovery to learn about the potential for this technique to be used to diagnose SARS-CoV-2 and other viral infections in remote areas, and more research articles.

The September issue of SLAS Discovery includes these additional articles:

• Replenishing the malaria drug discovery pipeline: Screening and hit evaluation of the MMV Hit Generation Library 1 (HGL1) against asexual blood stage Plasmodium falciparum, using a nano luciferase reporter read-out
• A novel high-throughput screening strategy for targeting alpha-synuclein and other long-lived proteins
• Point-of-use, automated fabrication of a 3D human liver model supplemented with human adipose microvessels
• Utilising acoustic mist ionisation mass spectrometry to identify redox cycling compounds in high throughput screening outputs

Access to the September issue of SLAS Discovery is available at https://slas-discovery.org/issue/S2472-5552(22)X0008-7

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SLAS (Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening) is an international professional society of academic, industry and government life sciences researchers and the developers and providers of laboratory automation technology. The SLAS mission is to bring together researchers in academia, industry and government to advance life sciences discovery and technology via education, knowledge exchange and global community building.

SLAS Discovery: Advancing the Science of Drug Discovery, 2021 Impact Factor 3.341. Editor-in-Chief Robert M. Campbell, Ph.D., Twentyeight-Seven Therapeutics, Watertown, MA (USA)

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