The Rapid Deployment of a 3D Printed “Latticed” Nasopharyngeal Swab for COVID-19 Testing Made Using Digital Light Synthesis

  1. Ian Bennett
  2. Philip L. Bulterys
  3. Melody Chang
  4. Joseph M. DeSimone
  5. Jennifer Fralick
  6. Marie Herring
  7. Hardik Kabaria
  8. Christina S. Kong
  9. Blane Larson
  10. Owen Lu
  11. Arielle Maxner
  12. Elle Meyer
  13. Shawn Patterson
  14. Steven Pollack
  15. Jason Rolland
  16. Steven Schmidt
  17. Sridhar Seshadri
  18. Keshav Swarup
  19. Chelsey Thomas
  20. Ryan Van Wert

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Abstract

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has caused a pandemic that has disrupted supply chains globally. This black swan event is challenging industries from all sectors of the economy including those industries directly needed to produce items that safeguard us from the disease itself, especially personal protection equipment (N95 masks, face shields) and much needed consumables associated with testing and vaccine delivery (swabs, vials and viral transfer medium). Digital manufacturing, especially 3D printing, has been promulgated as an important approach for the rapid development of new products as well as a replacement manufacturing technique for many traditional manufacturing methods, including injection molding, when supply chains are disrupted. Herein we report the use of Digital Light Synthesis (DLS) for the design and large-scale deployment of nasopharyngeal (NP) swabs for testing of coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 infections in humans. NP swabs have been one of society’s essential products hardest hit by the supply chain disruptions caused by COVID-19. A latticed tip NP swab was designed and fabricated by DLS from a liquid resin previously developed and approved for use to make dental night guard devices. These latticed NP swabs demonstrated non-inferiority in a human clinical study of patients suspected of being infected with SARS-CoV-2.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.25.20112201: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.05.25.20112201v1 on medRxiv