News Center reports membrane to capture COVID-19 air droplets

News Center Maine reported on a bioengineered membrane to detect and analyze coronavirus air droplets being developed by scientists at the University of Maine and University of Massachusetts Amherst. Testing for the membrane, which can be used as an insert in air filtration systems to capture virus-containing droplets for analysis, will begin next week in labs at the University of Maine Cooperative Extension. According to the report, “researchers will use a less-lethal virus first.” “So if we can catch this virus and pull it off the membrane for testing, we are confident we can do the same thing with SARS-CoV-2,” said Caitlin Howell, a biomedical engineer at UMaine and one of the project’s lead researchers.