Of all the entities I don’t need sticking cotton swabs up my nostril, an industrial robotic arm is fairly high on the list, right between an excitable toddler and a trained mountain gorilla. If you’ve been tested for COVID-19 then you definitely’ve probably skilled the unpleasantness of a nasal swab.

Someone takes a long-dealt with cotton swab and sticks it up your nose — means up your nostril — until it reaches the again of the mucus-cave that is your nasal cavity. Upon arrival they give the swab a great twirl to gather your secretions and beat a merciful retreat. I can say from personal expertise that it’s a uniquely unpleasant sensation. It’s something that simply feels mistaken, like the other of scratching an itch. The group’s first step was to find 3D printers that might produce swabs that meet Food and Drug Administration standards.

They famous that medical workers aren’t in that a lot danger when taking nasal swabs so long as they've the correct protecting gear, and that the robotic was slower than humans. That’s maybe why I was so unsettled by the sight of this autonomous nasal swab robot developed by Taiwanese medtech startup Brain Navi.

Jaya Ghosh, PhD, had expertise navigating FDA rules in her role as the program director of the MU Coulter Biomedical Accelerator, which helps the university’s scientists get their medical inventions to market. She discovered a Massachusetts-based mostly company referred to as Formlabs that would provide the 3D printers, materials and protocols wanted for the project. The new 3D printers on the University of Missouri College of Engineering have been given colourful nicknames, ranging from the attractive PiquantPelican to the down-and-soiled FreshSlug. The nicknames are becoming, because the printers are cranking out a product that is highly coveted for an unpleasant task — coronavirus testing swabs. The nasopharyngeal swab checks for coronavirus in the back of the nasal passage and is certainly one of a spread of swabbing techniques.

Once used, they’re sometimes mailed in transportable vials full of an answer known as “viral transport media,” which keeps the virus testable. Doctors The Verge spoke to about Brain Navi’s machine have been skeptical though.