COVID Testing

PCR

• Polymerase Chain Reaction -
• Need a marker for $50, which can do 1000 tests
• Need a lab
• Nobel Prize of 1985 for PCR
• Good for gene synthesis -
• Virus has been sequenced -
• Primers - to be sequenced -
• 10k - base pairs
• What primer to select? There are regions of the genome that
• Influenza - virus. It's quite mutable
• Look at the sequence - it's random. Take a specific region.
• Unique to COVID - take a gene sequence.
• $100- for 100 or so tests
• PAPR

Controversy

• USA has very little testing, and as such, confirmed cases are underreported - [1]

Links

• COVID Test Kits
• 30 minute test - [2]. The tests consist of strips of paper that are coated with antibodies that bind to a specific viral protein. Isolate antibodies from patients. Sequence them, then make them synthetically. Antibody is a tag that attaches to protein. You detect the virus antibody - such as ELIZA Assay. Colorimetric assay. Suppose you want to detect virus. Take a sample. Add it to a multiwell dish. Coat dish with sample, add anitbody that would attach to it if there is one. Wash everything else, and and detect the antibody that attached. IGG type secondary antibody - which has a fluorescent tag. Which you can detect with a biochemical reaction. They don't have the sequence of the antibody yet. They are produced by T-Cells. Culture the cells, isolate antibodies from them.