Developing a New Point-of-Care COVID-19 Antigen Test
Mark Fischl ’01, a senior staff scientist at OraSure Technologies in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, is working on a rapid COVID-19 antigen self-test that can be used anytime, anywhere.
By Claire Kowalchik
From the time he was a boy, growing up in Allentown, Mark Fischl ’01 was hooked on science. Besides astronomy and searching for fossils and minerals, he loved fishing. In middle school, he helped his grandfather make lures and spinners to sell at outdoors exhibits, and it was in fishing that he developed his first experiments.
“I made different types, colors, and orientations of lures. I’d get dropped off at a lake or river and try them out,” says Fischl. “I wanted to figure out which worked best on the particular fish I was targeting.”
Fischl took that interest in the natural world and his analytical curiosity to Moravian, where he earned a BS in biology. He recalls with vivid clarity favorite moments sampling ponds with biology professor Frank Kuserk and working closely with other faculty in the lab. “I was fortunate to have close connections with my professors, which friends at big universities didn’t experience,” he says.
One week after graduating, Fischl joined the research and development team at OraSure Technologies, a leader in point-of-care diagnostic tests, specimen-collection devices, and microbiome laboratory and analytical services. In Fischl’s 19 years with the company, he has helped develop diagnostic tests for drugs of abuse and infectious diseases. In October 2014, OraSure was asked to partner with the CDC and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (an office of the US Department of Health and Human Services) to accelerate the delivery of a point-of-care diagnostic device for Ebola virus detection to communities in West Africa during the outbreak. “These are mobile point-of-care devices, and putting them in the hands of healthcare workers in Africa helped curb the outbreak,” says Fischl.
“People’s lives depend on it. It totally consumes me. When I go back home at night, I can’t stop thinking about it.
These are extraordinary times.” —Mark Fischl ’01
Today, Fischl is the lead scientist in the development of a new point-of-care test for the COVID-19 antigen that would be easy to self-administer. Subject to receipt of Emergency Use Authorization, this product would test for active COVID-19 infection using nasal samples collected from the lower nostril. Results would be available at the point of collection, with no special instrumentation needed to interpret them. “It would work similarly to an at-home pregnancy test,” explains Fischl, “using lateral flow technology, which moves the sample and reagents [chemicals] over a membrane with immobilized test and control lines for detecting the analyte.” OraSure’s goal is to design a test that the average person can take anytime, anywhere.
The mission rests on the shoulders of biochemists. “I have a very dedicated team,” says Fischl. On a typical day, he meets with his team of scientists to review the results from the previous day’s evaluation and plan the next steps and experimental designs. The remainder of the day includes work in the lab developing and optimizing the test and more meetings with cross-functional teams in the company. The research and development team typically works seven days a week. “There is a lot of pressure to get this test out,” Fischl says. “People’s lives depend on it. It totally consumes me. When I go back home at night, I can’t stop thinking about it. These are extraordinary times.”
Claire Kowalchik is the editor of Moravian College Magazine.