Can Pregnancy Tests Help Beat The Pandemic?

Hi this is David from MinuteEarth.

Let's say - just hypothetically of course - that there was a global pandemic.

To stop its spread, we'd need to develop a test that could quickly, cheaply and effectively

identify infected people.

Luckily, that test already exists at your local drug store: it's called an early pregnancy

test.

Ok - you can't just pee on a stick and have it tell you if you've got the plague...Yet.

But the same type of test - that is, a sample pad and a paper stick that changes colors

to show a positive or negative result - can check people's spit for pathogens - and

lets chicken farmers test eggs for salmonella, municipal managers test drinking water for

contaminants, and chocolate factory owners test their creations for stray nuts.

In fact, these tests allow anyone - pretty much anywhere - to test pretty much any water-based

liquid for pretty much any protein because of the two basic concepts that make the test

work.

The first one is capillary action: if you have a small enough tube, you can draw any

water-based liquid through it in a predictable way; you can pee a lot or a little and at

pretty much any orientation - or bleed or spit or dissolve chocolate - onto a testing

pad, and the force of surface tension will slowly and predictably drag the fluid along

microscopic tubes within the testing paper.

So we don't need fancy pipettes or steady hands to make sure the exact right amount

of liquid gets tested in the right way.

And the way these tests analyze those liquids is by taking advantage of a second basic concept

- antibodies - which immune systems produce to attach to particular proteins.

We can identify antibodies that are specific to proteins in whatever we're looking for

- whether that's a pregnancy hormone or a peanut - then mass produce those antibodies

in a lab, dye some of them, and deploy them in strategic locations throughout a testing

strip.

If, say, there is pregnancy hormone in your pee, some of those dyed pregnancy-specific

antibodies - which are able to move freely - will latch onto those hormone molecules,

get drawn along the test strip by capillary action, and then get locked into place by

a second line of undyed antibodies that are glued down farther along the test.

If that line of concentrated colored antibodies shows up, congrats - you're pregnant...

or nutty... or contaminated.

Or Infected.

Which is especially important right now, as we actually are in the midst of a pandemic.

Scientists have already started developing several lateral flow assay designs to rapidly

test saliva for the COVID-19 virus, though they're still honing in on the exact right

antibodies to use - You don't want to use one that is not specific enough, as it may

lock on to other things besides the virus (causing false positives).

But you also don't want to use one that is too specific, as it might miss actual COVID

infections (causing false negatives).

We're within spitting distance of being able to quickly and reliably perform yet another

incredibly sophisticated multi-step analysis … from the comfort of our own bathrooms.

Thanks to the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, an international

graduate school devoted to the advancement of science, education and innovation in Japan

and throughout the world.

OIST not only sponsored this video - their Micro/Bio/Nanofluidics lab provided technical

expertise.

Professor Amy Shen and her team - including grad students Shivani Sathish, Ainash Garifullina,

and postdoc Riccardo Funari - are currently developing a blood test for COVID-19 antibodies

that uses microfluidics to combine the speed of the lateral flow assay with the quantitative

nature of more complex optical assays to quickly reveal not only whether you've already had

the disease, but how much antibody protection you still have in your body.

OIST offers a fully-funded PhD program and research internship opportunities that attract

talented young scientists from around the world.

To learn more about OIST - or maybe even apply - visit admissions.oist.jp.