A new mobile phone app and easy-to-do check will most likely be a game-changer for diagnosing Covid-19 and the flu. What’s really exciting is the ease of use, the relative affordability, and the fact that the inventors are making the formula available to everyone. The loose app is for the Android operating formula and can be downloaded from the Google Play Store.
The new Covid detection is described in the journal JAMA Network Open.
The formula uses a hot plate, a cell phone, a 96-well plate, LED lights, and chemical dosing, all of which can be assembled for $100. Mandatory chemicals are combined with saliva and placed in a pit on the plate, which looks like a They look a lot like miniature egg cribs in cardboard boxes, which there are 96 compatible with the plate. The plate is heated into a hot plate. A smartphone can read the chemical reaction and a diagnosis can be obtained in just 25 minutes. compared to $15 and up for immediate antigen verification kits and $100 and more consistent with PCR verification.
Project leader Dr. Michael Mahan, a professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology at UCSB, explained how it works. This is a procedure called smaRT-LAMP, short for Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification. He has worked with Douglas Heithoff and other scientists at UCSB and Cottage Hospital, adding professors Chuck Samuel (UCSB) and David Low (UCSB), as well as physicians Jeffrey Fried and Lynn Fitzgibbons (Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital).
The smaRT-LAMP test is very delicate and can stumble upon asymptomatic infections, with a threshold of 1000 copies of RNA (the CDC gold standard). LAMP is more delicate than RT-PCR (Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction), which requires estimated apparatus and takes hours to operate.
Mahan explained that the main challenge holding back the LAMP generation was that it had too many false positive results. After more than 500 tests, they discovered a way to solve the challenge of “first-dimers”: false positives due to maximum sensitivity. Subsequently, the check worked for both influenza and Covid-19.
This UCSB study took saliva samples from 50 people. It included samples from 20 symptomatic patients from Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital who tested positive for (RT-qPCR). They compared those effects with the saliva of 30 asymptomatic patients who tested negative for SARS. CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. They also compared samples with some doped with SARS-CoV-2 or the influenza A or B virus. Tests of RT-qPCR, the gold standard, were performed from the same samples. The samples were blinded, meaning that the user who performed the verification knew nothing that could replace the effects. The two trials were consistent in all samples, and in all 50 there was one hundred percent accuracy.
Other benefits of the new smART-LAMP strategy are that the samples can be kept at room temperature and the reaction takes place at a constant temperature, as if it were an undeniable hot plate. This verification must be adapted without problems to other pathogens.
Mahan’s studies were funded through the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health, Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, and the U. S. Army Research Office. The U. S. Institute of Collaborative Biotechnologies cooperation agreement and contract.
Other teams are also running immediate diagnostic tests. Anurup Ganguli and Rashid Bashir of the University of Illinois also have a LAMP-based diagnostic test, but theirs requires a microfluidic cartridge and a portable instrument at the point of care. An organization at the University of Washington has a LAMP formula that requires spectrophotometry.
Robert Meagher, PhD, bioengineer and LAMP expert at Sandia National Laboratory, spoke with me about PCR and LAMP testing and reviewed the JAMA Open article. his test with many samples and many repetitions. ” He also appreciated the fact that they used “real samples from realistically treated patients” and that the study used blind samples. Meagher is excited about LAMP testing because PCR is still too expensive. for many uses. With LAMP, “you have anything you can do with plastic and LED sheets from the electronics store and your smartphone, and a heating plate that’s probably in each and every lab. So, it democratizes the ability to make those checks. . . The ability to do anything that is affordable and available and not limited through a single source is a very favorable approach.
Mahan noted, “The app and the recipe for doing so are free. We’re just looking to do something smart for the pandemic. There are no patents; there is no disclosure. It’s open to everyone. “
This generosity is very close to what Drs. Peter Hotez and Maria Elena Botazzi are achieving with their purpose of “vaccinating the world” with their Corbevax Covid vaccine. Developed at Baylor University, Corbevax is also patent-free, unlike the incredibly expensive one. As Hotez told Publishing Perspectives in March, “The fact is that no new [mRNA] vaccine can be manufactured on the African continent or in the Middle East. And so we ended up with this decision on the multinationals [pharmaceutical corporations], which will give priority to North America and Europe.
I have been very attracted to the purpose of “scientific Tikkun” through Hotez. The term is derived from the Jewish concept of “tikkun olam,” or repairing the world. Hotez describes the “scientific tikun” as “a framework encompassing the right of access to innovation and translational medicine on a global scale. “For him, the focus is on vaccines and the treatment of overlooked tropical diseases (also known as NTDs). For Mahan, “The progression of this low-cost, open-access diagnostic test is our way of helping to reduce inequalities around the world. . . We were just looking to do something smart around the world, and that’s why the app and method are loose and available to everyone. “
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