The new diagnostic system combines Schmidt’s area of expertise in optofluidics, which is the control of tiny amounts of fluids with beams of light, with a nanopore for counting single nucleic acids to read genetic material. The tool was designed to test for Zika and SARS-CoV-2, which have been priority areas for National Institutes of Health, which funded the research. The team’s trials showed that the test correctly detected the virus for each sample that the PCR test was also able to detect, even at extremely low concentrations of the virus. There were instances in which the new test could detect virus, which the PCR test did not, showing that the researchers’ system can be even more accurate than PCR. “… we find that the nanopore sensor produces qualitative and quantitative agreement with all PCR-positive samples and was able to deliver a viral load reading for multiple samples that did not produce a PCR result, likely due to the complexity of that method,” the authors commented. https://www.genengnews.com/topics/i...agnostics-nanopore-system-may-outperform-pcr/
