World News | New test developed for COVID-19 can detect infection hours after exposure: study

WASHINGTON, Feb. 28 (PTI) — Researchers have developed a new method to test patients for COVID-19 that examines the body’s immune response at the molecular level, according to a new study.

According to the study, their method has the potential to detect infection within hours of exposure — much earlier than current COVID-19 tests can detect the virus — and with near-perfect accuracy.

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Most existing COVID-19 tests “rely on the same principle that you have accumulated detectable amounts of viral material, for example, in your nose,” said the study’s lead author, now an assistant professor at Cedars-Sinai Medical. Frank Zhang said. The center is in Los Angeles.

“That poses a challenge when it’s early in the infection time window and you’re not accumulating a lot of viral material, or you’re asymptomatic,” Zhang said.

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Instead, the new technology is based on how our bodies mount an immune response when invaded by SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

The team describes their innovation, which is still in the early stages of development, in the journal Cell Reports Methods.

When the attack begins, specific genes are turned on. Segments of these genes produce mRNA molecules that direct the building of proteins.

The special mix of these mRNA molecules altered the types of proteins produced, including those involved in antiviral functions, the study said.

The new method can confidently determine when the body mounts an immune response to the COVID-19 virus by measuring the relative abundance of various mRNA molecules, according to the study.

The new study is the first to use this approach to diagnose infectious diseases, it said.

The researchers adapted their method using blood samples taken before and after participants contracted COVID-19 in a 2020 study of U.S. Marine Corps recruits. The researchers’ computational framework identified changes in the ratios of more than 1,000 mRNA variants associated with disease, according to the study.

When tested using real-world blood samples, the new method achieved an impressive 98.4 percent accuracy, the study said.

This is particularly impressive because the method works equally well in asymptomatic patients, for whom rapid antigen tests can be less than 60 percent accurate, the study said.

“It’s amazing how well it works,” Zhang said.

“This is a promising alternative and complementary method to traditional PCR testing,” Zhang said.

Zhang said the new method is not yet ready for prime time. He and his colleagues tested only blood samples, not nasal samples, which are more common and easier to diagnose COVID-19.

They also need to make sure they can differentiate the body’s response to COVID-19 from its response to infections caused by other viruses, such as colds, the study said.

Still, the researchers say they are optimistic because other research groups have made progress with tests that focus only on which genes are turned on.

Those same tests could easily be added with the mRNA analysis developed in the new study, yielding even better results, Zhang said.

“Anything they can do, we can explore and join forces, including finding cases within hours of initial contact,” Zhang said.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the body of content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)