Amazing work!!! Thank you for working on this
We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day
121–130 of 247 posts
Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day
#122How quickly can this method be retooled for other pandemics, if there are 1000s of potential corvid-19s out there how quickly can it be adapted for the next one?
Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day
#123I'm the co-founder and CTO at BillionToOne. I'm happy to answer any questions here. I've also posted a slightly more technical explanation of how the test works and why it can scale here: https://twitter.com/dtsao/status/1247642005510873088?s=21 Edit: Since our site seems to be overwhelmed at the moment, here's a recap: We’ve been working hard at BillionToOne on a new COVID-19 test that scales testing to everyone in…
All the material on your page talks about throughput but not turnaround time which makes me quite suspicious that it's not very good. Obviously, however, if it takes 2 weeks to do the test then it has very limited utility as the person will have recovered (or had an adverse outcome) anyway. Since it cannot be administered at the point of care I am imagining that you are already up against a day or so of logistics just to get a sample to the testing location.
Can you please comment on the actual realistic turnaround time for the test?
Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day
#124I'm the co-founder and CTO at BillionToOne. I'm happy to answer any questions here. I've also posted a slightly more technical explanation of how the test works and why it can scale here: https://twitter.com/dtsao/status/1247642005510873088?s=21 Edit: Since our site seems to be overwhelmed at the moment, here's a recap: We’ve been working hard at BillionToOne on a new COVID-19 test that scales testing to everyone in…
I would not have even considered trying to make use of the existing Sanger sequencing machines. This opens up a whole extra set of hardware to increase testing bandwidth. Thank you.
Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day
#125all of the underlined "filling out this form" links are bad
Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the stronger interpretation?
That he was simply making a claim about what their initial data show. That is not a claim to perfection. Indeed, the whole point of saying 'initial' is to leave open the possibility that later data show something different.
Personally, I don't think your interpretation is more charitable. If they think that their initial results possibly aren't correct then launching a business and claiming things like "Extremely Accurate" and "on par or better than other COVID-19 tests available" is fraudulent.
Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Our technique would still be affected by shortages in specimen collection (like swabs). Purely speculative, but I think if swabs remain an issue for too long, alternatives could start coming online, such as even using qtips + saline (no idea if it works, it's just an example). The current swab + Universal / Viral Transport Medium combo is optimized for flexibility; it is designed to work across a very broad range of…
if the virus is known to live on cardboard or plastic for 48-72 hours, is the viral transport medium even necessary, assuming rapid shipping and processing?
Can live up to X hours != Will live up to X hours
Let’s say it’s 50/50 whether it lives 24h without help. That’s would be a pretty bad false negative rate for your test, but a 50/50 of potentially getting infected by your mail is pretty high.
Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
My guess is that self-swabbing is allowed in the Seattle SCAN study because it is a research study. The SCAN study is super fascinating because it would be crazy unusual under normal times for a research study to return results back to patients; I'm very happy they are able to do that, and it speaks to the severity of this pandemic. The FDA has recently made clear that no at-home self-collection tests are allowed (fo…
> The FDA has recently made clear that no at-home self-collection tests are allowed I think rightfully so. I was on a government video conference where a doctor showed the current CDC testing procedure, which involves stick a swab in the nose all the way to the back of the throat. They explained that the further the sample is taken from the lungs the less accurate it is.
For clarity, a 500-patient study in WA (not yet peer-reviewed) showing self-swabbing to be as effective as swabbing by health care workers has prompted FDA to allow patient to self-swab at clinics, just not at home: https://medcitynews.com/2020/03/fda-says-patients-can-self-a...
Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
The situation is similar in WA state, where the current bottleneck is specimen collection, as there is a shortage of swabs, vials, PPE and personnel. This results in large amount of existing lab capacity, such as at UW Virology labs, not being used. Skipping RNA extraction definitely helps with expanding lab capacity in places where that's the current bottleneck, but isn't the most pressing thing in WA.
The other bottleneck in WA is that the state's multimillion dollar, IBM-contracted data collection program can't keep up ingesting a few thousand records a day.
That's just for public data reporting, so doesn't stop people from actually doing tests.
Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day
#130I'm the co-founder and CTO at BillionToOne. I'm happy to answer any questions here. I've also posted a slightly more technical explanation of how the test works and why it can scale here: https://twitter.com/dtsao/status/1247642005510873088?s=21 Edit: Since our site seems to be overwhelmed at the moment, here's a recap: We’ve been working hard at BillionToOne on a new COVID-19 test that scales testing to everyone in…
All the material on your page talks about throughput but not turnaround time which makes me quite suspicious that it's not very good. Obviously, however, if it takes 2 weeks to do the test then it has very limited utility as the person will have recovered (or had an adverse outcome) anyway. Since it cannot be administered at the point of care I am imagining that you are already up against a day or so of logistics jus…
A turn around time of 24-36 hours should be easily achievable for the performing lab, depending on the time of day the specimen arrives (morning vs afternoon). It takes about 1 hour for the initial RT-PCR amplification, and sequencing takes about 12 hours.