The COVID-19 severity test strip is based on lateral flow immunoassay, which may help the clinicians to assess the severity of COVID-19 patients. The test strip targets a cytokine in patient serum known as Interleukin-6 (IL-6). Researches have shown that IL-6 may play an important role in development of respiratory failure, shock, multi-organ dysfunction, or even cytokine storm. Therefore, taking serum IL-6 as the targeting biomarker, can help predicting disease progression. As a result, the gold nanoparticles accumulate on the test line to perform color signal. Through test strip modification and in coordination with a reader, a cut-off value can be defined which is related to the color signal. In clinical situation, if the testing value reaches the cut-off value, this means that the patient may be in danger of respiratory dysfunction, and immediate actions such as intubation is required.

The test strip based on the lateral flow immunoassay in order to detect the biomarker Interleukin-6 (IL-6). The test strip requires less time and cost, and is also convenient for medical personnel to conduct the test. The test strip undergoes serologic testing, may face the challenges of how to enhance the detection limit, how to select antibody pairing, and how to turn color signal into numerical value.

Since the breakout of COVID-19 in the end of 2019, millions of people worldwide had been infected and the number is still increasing. This huge amount of infection causes great impact to the medical systems of every country, and also stimulate the study about the COVID-19 in biotechnology industry. To face the disease, some of the most important research area includes diagnostic method, vaccine, and drugs development. Our test strip can be defined as a medical diagnostic device, which can help the medical personnel to predict the disease progression of the patient. This gives medical personnel a chance to take well care for those who may be in danger of fatal illness.