New Genetic Tests Aim To Detect Infectious Diseases

To identify bacteria, labs still rely on century-old techniques from Louis Pasteur — putting a few drops of blood or other sample in a lab dish and waiting days or sometimes weeks to see what germs grow. To test for a virus, a doctor usually has to guess what the patient is sick with. Testing for a fungus or some other things can take a long time.

Several companies and university labs now offer gene-based tests on blood or spinal fluid. Once fragments of foreign DNA or other genetic material are found, their code is analyzed, or sequenced, to identify bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites causing sepsis, meningitis, encephalitis and other deadly illnesses.

“The key advantage of sequencing is it can look for everything at once” rather than doing separate tests for each virus or other microbe that’s suspected, said Dr. Charles Chiu, a microbiologist at the University of California, San Francisco.

Read more at AP