Presently, individuals experiencing coronavirus symptoms normally have to wait for 48 hours for test results, with some patients reporting wait times more than that.
However, with scientists around the world clamouring to generate a reliable, fast and cost-effective evaluation for the coronavirus, Professor Maneesh Singh from Hull believes that the firm, Biocel Analytics, has produced a special method.
It involves the area of infrared microspectroscopy, which can be used to study and identify the contents of chemical compounds. Professor Singh’s claim comes as US company Abbott Laboratories today begins shipping its five-minute coronavirus evaluation to medics around America after getting emergency FDA approval last week.
The UK still doesn’t have a widely accessible kit for members of the public to be analyzed with, and the NHS is still only able to examine hospital patients. In Professor Singh’s evaluation, a sample taken from the interior of a patient’s mouth is applied to a swab testing apparatus in the laboratory.
Within the unit, infrared light is passed through a lab diamond, which reflects the infrared light and produces a wave that interacts with the sample, making a unique ‘fingerprint’ spectrum that represents either a positive or negative outcome.
To get that result, the information from the fingerprint must be put through an algorithm which was developed by Professor Singh and his staff inside the space of just a week to identify which samples are infected and which aren’t. It is a strong emerging technique,’ Professor Singh said.’We are not following any profits, it is about building a scientific breakthrough. We’re in a significant crisis.
‘The authorities don’t need to take it, but we only need to be in a position to provide a possible solution for their consideration He said the plan would be to have the ability to send the fingerprint spectrum information via Bluetooth to a program for any mobile device that has the algorithm embedded in it, so the result can be given almost immediately.
‘We are here to assist our colleagues really so we wish to develop this as quickly as possible,’ he said.’The sudden emergence of Covid-19 supposed we thought we could do something to create a difference, so we’ve only gone for it wholeheartedly.
‘We felt we needed to give it a shot.’I am not the kind to sit in a catastrophe, I like to take control, so it is quite difficult not to be as involved as I was in the NHS, but I wanted to attempt to do something in another way.
‘The field of infrared spectroscopy has been used for several years in different fields of medicine, with previous research showing the method may also be utilised in the diagnosis of esophageal cancer and Alzheimer’s Disease.
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