You need a test in real time. Ten minutes for millions is gonna be hard to enforce them to sit and wait every day. I’m assuming you need to test them every day. You need a real time scanner and even that may or may not work depending the speed and invasivness of collecting before the actual scan.
A Third Solution
301–310 of 535 posts
Re: A Third Solution
#302The post refers to an alternative method of testing for COVID-19 based on surface plasmon resonance that would have significant advantages, but unfortunately it provides absolutely no real substantiation that the test exists or works. The link about surface plasmon resonance goes to a generic Wikipedia page, the link about saliva is a small scale study that was conducted on RT-PCR not surface plasmon resonance, and t…
He should also disclose any personal interest in it more clearly at the top of the article.
Yeah he def have skin in there
Re: A Third Solution
#303I’m having difficulty understanding why SPR would be more scalable than LFAs for this type of frequent screening? And what does the ROC look like for this startup’s SPR assay? Frankly, I don’t understand how this test is supposed to work, and I’ve used a Biacore! It might be helpful to have a technical explanation available, for domain experts to evaluate.
There didn't seem to be any details at all. Is there some sort of functionalized surface that specifically binds the virus, if so what molecule/chemistry, how? edit: this is all I found about the company: https://www.sbir.gov/sbirsearch/detail/1564207 https://innovation.medicine.umich.edu/portfolio_post/sepsis-...
Good sleuthing! As you suspect we functionalize the our sensor surface to specifically bind the virus. We've partnered with a therapeutics company developing highly specific monoclonal mAbs against SARS-CoV-2 which we leverage in our diagnostic platform.
Re: A Third Solution
#304This isn't a unique idea. This is the mainstream view. Everyone knows we need more testing and that testing is the only way to effectively ease distancing rules. That was a pretty extensive writeup to say what we've been hearing from all rational information outlets for a month.
Everyone says "we need more testing", but there's actually very little discussion of how that testing would translate into lower transmission. I'm skeptical any program less aggressive than the one proposed here would get R0 < 1.
Testing by itself does nothing to reduce transmission. What it does do, though, is give you the opportunity to identify infected people and isolate them. And if you can identify and isolate them early enough in the course of their illness, you can prevent them from infecting many other people, and that’s what reduces transmission.
Given that it appears people with COVID-19 can shed the disease for many days before showing any symptoms, if your goal is to pinch off outbreaks before they become outbreaks, frequent, universal testing is the only way to get there.
Re: A Third Solution
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right, I think we’ve probably missed boat on developing new diagnostic methods for Sars-CoV2. In particular, this method appears to be antibody based? (Which has accuracy issues) and uses SPR, which may involve some technical risk. However, I think there’s mileage in developing methods now for the next pandemic. My personal interest is in developing programmable qPCR-like systems [1]. So that kits can be deployed ahe…
I'm not familiar with the acronym PSM. Can you expand? Are you familiar with the work of Dr. Chui at UCSF? His group has done some really cool work using mNGS to detect/diagnose emerging/rare infections in critically-ill patients with refractory encephalopathy
Sorry, typo. I meant SPR (surface plasmon resonance).
I’ve worked at a number of NGS platform companies developing new sequencing approaches. The problem is that sequencing is still expensive at the per-run level. It’s possible to be cost competitive with qPCR if you multiplex samples. But this isn’t ideal.
It would be interesting to create a small/cheap sequencer which could be applied to point-of-care/at-home testing. However, most of the money has gone after attacking the market leader (Illumina) on a cost-per-base, rather than cost-per-run.
A 1USD per-run sequencer would be interesting. But I’ve not seen anything that will hit that target in development. If anyone reading this is developing such a system, let me know, I’d love to get involved.
The idea of a programmable qPCR system is to add some of the versatility of sequencing to qPCR.
Re: A Third Solution
#306We need micro PCR machines built into our phones. They could basically test for everything all the time.
Re: A Third Solution
#307We need micro PCR machines built into our phones. They could basically test for everything all the time.
That would be sweet. Lead-time on this one is likely too long, however.
Re: A Third Solution
#308There is an episode of Sliders (Fever, Season 1, Episode 3), where they slide into a world affected by an infection with no cure, and scanners have been placed at the entrance to every store to detect if you have it.
In the show the disease is used as a classist thing or something. Anyways, its bacterial not viral, and they discover than antibiotics were never discovered so the Professor scrapes some fungus off some trash and takes it and is cured.
Re: A Third Solution
#309We need micro PCR machines built into our phones. They could basically test for everything all the time.
Also a FLIR selfie camera could monitor our temperature at random points throughout the day.
Re: A Third Solution
#310I think the ubiquitous testing is the right approach, but I don't think we need a new test. Any test that requires a machine is going to be a severe bottleneck in testing. Far better to use one of the antibody test strips. Prick your finger to get blood, or spit some saliva on a strip and you know in 5 minutes if you have antibodies. Just keep testing everyone on a regular basis, and once they test positive, they are…
I agree that reliable antibody tests will be a help to policymakers in how they model the continued stay-at-home posture and begin to open things back up.
I think the jury is still out on 1. The persistence of the antibody response post-infection and 2. the neutralization/protection afforded by these antibodies.
The development of antibodies requires either a vaccine or you to be infected. The rate of antibody protection in populations is certainly rising, but to get to meaningful levels of herd-immunity it would require all of us to get infected, lets say ~70%+ (obviously problematic), or rapid and major strides to be made in vaccination.
Anecdotally, significant therapeutic, vaccination and diagnostic approaches are required to effectively respond to COVID-19. Its been incredible to be a part of such a widespread, organized movement within both the healthcare and tech communities as we collectively mobilize to respond.