51–60 of 247 posts
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What's the stronger interpretation?
They say they have not had false positives or false negatives. If that's not a lie, then that's not a lie. It does not mean the test is perfect, but it likely means the false result rate is low.
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…
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…
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For HN it's better to drop the fundraising language and use the implementing language, so I've s/machine learning/linear regression/'d your text above.
Wait, are you saying that you actually edited the text of someone's comment?
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Since people seem to be reacting to the word "unlocking" in the title, I've replaced it with "working on".
Thanks. Make him explain whether the machine learning is real too, since his linked manuscript doesn't say anything about it. This is a really exploitative moment to be hyping things.
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…
Thank you for your efforts as well! Sample collection and accessioning (accessioning is unpacking test tubes one by one and aliquoting them into plates in the lab) is definitely going to require a lot of manpower. I'm hopeful that patients "self swabbing" can help alleviate some of the manpower needs. (Self-swabs are not allowed currently under FDA guidance).
Is self-swabbing allowed there because it's for research purpose, not clinical purpose? The program does tell users whether they test positive though.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For HN it's better to drop the fundraising language and use the implementing language, so I've s/machine learning/linear regression/'d your text above.
Wait, are you saying that you actually edited the text of someone's comment?
Thanks Dang!
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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 (…
No. :)
Seriously, these are orthogonal skills. I briefly worked for a communications satellite company that had a pretty godawful web site, but I doubt any of their prospective customers visited it and said, "Wow, if these people can't design a good looking web page, how can we trust them to put a satellite in orbit?"
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…
Hey, lowly Bio undergrad here, but how are you able to skip the RNA extraction step? I read the paper and you use the viral transport medium, but wouldn't you have to also purify RNA from that (or is it just much easier to extract RNA from that medium)? I also dived into the paper behind the "skip the RNA extraction step" methodology and it basically seems to swap out one RNA extraction kit for another (Qiagen RNeasy…
By the way, this robustness is completely expected, as any impurities in VTM would impact spike-in and endogenous viral amplification equally for end-point PCR (so their ratio stays the. same). This is not necessarily true for qPCR where an impurity (caused by lack of RNA extraction) can potentially cause a positive sample look like a negative when the viral RNA does not RT-PCR.
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…
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 need martial law.