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A USB Stick Can Show HIV Test Results In Under 30 Minutes (qz.com)
Researchers at Imperial College London have developed a USB stick that can measure the presence and amount of HIV in a person's blood in under 30 minutes and with 95% accuracy. The USB stick should help make testing easier in places like sub-Saharan Africa, where HIV is a serious problem and where many people live in rural regions hours or days travel away from hospitals or clinics. Also, traditional HIV testing can take days to show results, whereas the USB stick can show results in minutes. Quartz reports: The new diagnostic tool, co-created by the university and biotech company DNA Electronics, requires simply putting a single drop of blood onto a designated spot on the USB stick. The device contains a mechanism that can detect if there's any HIV genetic material -- RNA -- in the drop of blood, and if so, how much. Then, when the stick is connected to a laptop or handheld device, the data are automatically delivered to an app where the patient can quickly read his or her results. One of the most effective HIV treatments currently, called anti-retroviral treatment, reduces virus levels to near zero. However, in some cases, the virus may develop a resistance to medication or therapy, causing the virus to resurface. To catch such developments early, patients can use the devices for monitoring purposes. "The disposable test could be used by HIV patients to monitor their own treatment and help patients in remote regions of the world, where more standard HIV tests are inaccessible," the authors of the study write. For now, it's still in the proof-of-concept stage, and years away from hitting the market.
It might have a virus.
For edification, DNAe actually has some merit. They're a London based company and developed the technology behind the Ion Torrent DNA sequencer that is sold by Thermo Fisher. The Ion Torrent is a valid machine, although not quite as good as the MiSeq from Illumina. It works by breaking DNA up and the hydrogen ions released create a measurable signal alteration on the silicon FETs; the chemistry invovled is astounding to make it go where you want and sequence stuff.
https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/brands/ion-torrent.html
This appears to be a miniaturization of the technology. Viruses, particularly RNA viruses, have a lot fewer genes to work with; HIV only has 9 genes as compared to the human genome which has around 25,000. Since you don't need as much processing power it's conceivable you could miniaturize the Ion Torrent technology for a smaller target like HIV viral RNA.
You dumb fuck.
http://www.medpagetoday.com/me...
You are welcome on my lawn.
Actually, we have had simple paper test strips for over 15 years in this country, but the gay community has kept them from being widely distributed because they claim to fear discriminatory reprisals if HIV tests were readily available to the public.
How absurd! Rapid HIV tests are widely available at health clinics and STD testing centres across North America. Within 1 minute you get a result that has 99.7% sensitivity and 99.98% specificity. In cases where a positive is detected, it can be followed up with a more accurate lab-based blood test.
Sexual and gender minorities are great advocates for making HIV testing faster, easier, and more reliable, so please keep your bigoted nonsense to yourself.
It has "a mechanism" to detect RNA...but only one specific kind of RNA? They didn't come up with a broader approach to detect, say, many kinds of viruses? And it's so commoditizable that it's a USB stick?
*cough*Theranos*cough*
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
It's more the AMA than Republicans. They want test to be unreliable and expensive. Last time o had viral pneumonia, I ended up on the hospital and in a medically induced coma before they would help me.
Yeah, bad stuff like that always seems to happen to ACs. Amazing how much your life gets better when you log in.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!