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We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day

billiontoone.com

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Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day

#131

Post by Robotbeat »

mike_d wrote: post #88
buzzkillington wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it incredible that no one has done these studies before issuing the lock down orders. Without knowing what the proportion of people who have been exposed but aren't sick any response is the wrong response. If it turns out that it's already spread to most everybody lock downs are just a way to create more homelessness. If it turns out that the only people with the antibodies are the ones in the hospitals we nee…

These studies were done well in advance. Every bit of research we have about the 1918 Influenza points to social isolation being the only effective way to combat a pandemic.

South Korea shows that test and trace works just as good or better than lockdowns. Which is why our failure to get high testing rates early on is such an utter travesty.

Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day

#132

Post by dfsegoat »

dvdt wrote: post #2

I'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…

What's the plan for regulatory approval?

Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day

#133

Post by shushpanchik »

I'm wondering, if the bottleneck in testing is number of tests per day available, could we use Bloom filter methodology for it? Like, for example, take samples of 1024 people, assign them 10-bit IDs randomly, mix samples of everyone with bit 1 in position 0 in one pool, with bit 1 in position 1 in 2nd pool and so on. Then do 10 tests, and whoever has negative result in any of set bits of his ID, does not have virus. If too many people of 1024 have virus, add another set of random IDs and do 10 more tests, etc. If there are no technical limitations, that would allow to get negative results to, let's say, 900 people from 1024 with only 10-30 tests. Other 124 could be tested personally. That's 85% reduction in number of tests needed.

Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day

#134

Post by Palomides »

shushpanchik wrote: post #133

I'm wondering, if the bottleneck in testing is number of tests per day available, could we use Bloom filter methodology for it? Like, for example, take samples of 1024 people, assign them 10-bit IDs randomly, mix samples of everyone with bit 1 in position 0 in one pool, with bit 1 in position 1 in 2nd pool and so on. Then do 10 tests, and whoever has negative result in any of set bits of his ID, does not have virus.…

this is more or less being done, under names like "pooled testing"

Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day

#135

Post by johncolanduoni »

treis wrote: post #126
dang wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Their initial results may be correct, but it is unlikely they’ve had the chance to do enough of them to pin down a failure rate with any precision. They also claim that other available COVID-19 tests haven’t undergone enough verification to establish a solid error rate, and if that’s so “on par or better” on the evaluations that have been run is fair as well.

Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day

#136

Post by gonational »

buzzkillington wrote: post #60
tbenst wrote: post #10

Thanks for your efforts! Inspiring to see our broader community spring into action. I was part of a volunteer team that tested 3400 people on Friday/Saturday in Santa Clara country for COVID-19 antibodies [1]. It took a team of 100+ volunteers 10 hours / day just to collect samples. Stanford, for example, has plenty of automated testing capacity, and even reagents. IMHO, the limiting factors are not that we need new…

I find it incredible that no one has done these studies before issuing the lock down orders. Without knowing what the proportion of people who have been exposed but aren't sick any response is the wrong response. If it turns out that it's already spread to most everybody lock downs are just a way to create more homelessness. If it turns out that the only people with the antibodies are the ones in the hospitals we nee…

Your comment, unfortunately, won’t be appreciated by lemmings until the unemployment rate is 45% and hundreds of thousands are dying from disease and starvation.

Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day

#137

Post by Blahah »

amirhirsch wrote: post #96
dvdt wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the question! The goal of skipping RNA extraction is to decrease the amount of labor necessary for processing samples and also to eliminate a dependency on RNA extraction reagents that have recently become difficult to find. The FDA is very strict about the specific brand and model of kit you use, so showing that you can swap out one RNA kit for another is actually very useful because you will have allevia…

The spike-in DNA injection is clever. How did you develop that technology? It seems like the kind of thing that just hits you one day.

It's standard practise in lots of kinds of sequencing experiments to use a spike-in. Makes perfect sense to use it here - in fact all the other sequencing based SARS-CoV-2 tests I've seen also use spike-ins.

Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day

#138

Post by dang »

gonational wrote: post #136
buzzkillington wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it incredible that no one has done these studies before issuing the lock down orders. Without knowing what the proportion of people who have been exposed but aren't sick any response is the wrong response. If it turns out that it's already spread to most everybody lock downs are just a way to create more homelessness. If it turns out that the only people with the antibodies are the ones in the hospitals we nee…

Your comment, unfortunately, won’t be appreciated by lemmings until the unemployment rate is 45% and hundreds of thousands are dying from disease and starvation.

Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day

#139

Post by Blahah »

shushpanchik wrote: post #133

I'm wondering, if the bottleneck in testing is number of tests per day available, could we use Bloom filter methodology for it? Like, for example, take samples of 1024 people, assign them 10-bit IDs randomly, mix samples of everyone with bit 1 in position 0 in one pool, with bit 1 in position 1 in 2nd pool and so on. Then do 10 tests, and whoever has negative result in any of set bits of his ID, does not have virus.…

This is the basis for several sequencing-based test protocols in development. It's called barcoding, and the massively parallel sequencing of tens of thousands of barcoded pooled sequences is called bar-seq.

See e.g. https://twitter.com/hsalis/status/1241121806473461760

Re: We’re working on 1M Covid-19 testing capacity per day

#140

Post by dang »

thoraway1010 wrote: post #42
KukicAdnan wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because scaling medical testing is the same as scaling web services...

actually, scaling a website is much easier than scaling a medical service. If you can't be bothered to take some basic steps for web site scaling (google page speed + a CDN) then the idea that you will carefully and successfully navigate to a 1 million tests per day moderate to high complexity medical test seems like it will be a stretch no? That said, a 100% support MUCh higher test capacity, both this and IGg IGm (…

One reason that argument doesn't work is the effects of focus. When you're intensely focused on something, momentum builds up that is like a high-speed train. You can't do nimble switching, even to easier things. One might imagine that they'd forget to, say, pay a utility bill as well.

(I have no inside information and am simply guessing based on past experience with unrelated things.)

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