US: New blood test method successfully developed.
American scientists have recently successfully developed a new blood test called VirScan, which can identify most of the viruses a person has been exposed to over many years with just one test.
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| Illustrative image. (Source: medicaldaily.com) |
The study was published in the June 4th issue of the American journal Science. Compared to current popular blood tests such as ELISA, which only detect one pathogen per test, VirScan is an effective and fast method, and importantly, the cost of testing using this method is quite reasonable, at only $25.
To achieve this breakthrough, American scientists built a "virus library" containing protein sequences from more than 1,000 different viruses known to science, thereby providing a basis for identifying the viruses that patients are infected with.
Next, the research team conducted blood tests on 600 people in various countries across continents, including Peru, the United States, South Africa, and Thailand, using this database. The results of a single test showed that most of these individuals were exposed to about 10 different viruses, and at least two people had been infected with 84 different viruses.
Furthermore, through this experiment, researchers discovered that some antibodies produced by the body's immune system when encountering viruses are very common in adults, but are absent in young children. Therefore, they believe that young children have not been exposed to these viruses.
The lead researcher, Stephen Elledge of Bringham Women's Hospital, said that doctors typically diagnose and order tests to look for a particular virus in patients.
However, VirScan can detect many different types of viruses, even exotic ones, so this method will help scientists develop new hypotheses and gain a broader understanding of the interaction between the human immune system and viruses.
The research team believes that VirScan's accuracy will improve with more blood samples and that in the future, this method could be applied to testing for bacteria, fungi, or protozoa.
According to Vietnam+
