[PLUG-TALK] Motherboard PCR heater for COVID detection

Keith Lofstrom keithl at kl-ic.com
Sat Apr 11 17:40:43 UTC 2020


The best way to stop COVID in its tracks is to test
everyone OFTEN and measure the results, then build
computer models of their contacts and interactions.

Can we repurpose old motherboards to help detect COVID?

A common method to detect viral genetic material is to
"amplify" it with the polymerase chain reaction. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction

A molecule of viral DNA (or RNA, for an "RNA virus" like
COVID-19) is put in a minuscule "test tube" with 100
microliters of PCR buffer solution, polymerase, and
oligonucleotides. 

The process mimics natural reproduction in cells, but is
controlled by precision temperature cycling between 
(for example) 95 Celsius and 55 Celsius, which melts
and splits the molecule, then anneals and doubles it.
The process can be repeated 5 times per hour (mostly
the slow anneal); in 6 hours, one nucleic acid molecule
becomes a billion, enough to characterize with microscope
tools.

There is a lot more involved, but at least the precision
temperature cycling might be done by inserting the test
tube "rack" between an added heat spreader on top of a
CPU, and the heat sink fan above.  

The temperature readout of a CPU is imprecise, but it
could be characterized and calibrated with an external
thermocouple and separate test setup.  I presume 
identical motherboard/CPU/program activity combinations
can produce identical temperature cycles. 

This will be slow and frustrating to design and debug,
but in the end the motherboard waste stream at Free
Geek could be transformed into thousands of PCR heaters.

Combined with other amateur and semi-professional teams
learning how to make the process chemicals and analyze
the results, we could turn lots of idle people in the
Portland area into lab test "assembly line" technicians.

Professional restaurant cooks and micro-brewers with
technical training might be the best at making chemicals.

I was inspired by the story of Enigma decryption during
World War II.  A handful of professional cryptographers
trained tens of thousands of smart people (mostly women)
to operate an "information assembly line" that could
decrypt in hours secret messages that the Germans 
believed would take a billion years.  Ordinary people,
properly organized, can do extraordinary things.

We do not need to wait for big government or big business
to save us.  Our community developed the best operating
system and computer tools in the world by learning,
playing, and collaborating.  A similar process can 
provide everyone in Portland, in Oregon, in the US, in
the world, with the tools we need to vanquish COVID.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com



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