Microbiologists have developed a test that can detect all viruses present in the sample.

Ebola virus

Microbiologists from the University of Washington School of Medicine announced the creation of a new test that allows you to find all the viruses present in the human or animal body. The test called ViroCap even detects viruses whose concentration is extremely low.

With a modern analysis of blood and other biological samples, laboratories usually look for traces of a particular virus that can lead to observable symptoms in a patient. Scientists from Washington argue that their test allows you to "throw a large network" and catch all the viruses that may be present in samples at once.

“With our dough, you don’t even need to know in advance what you are looking for,” says Gregory Storch, the main author of the study . - It can effectively detect even those viruses whose concentration is rather low. Such a test can be useful in cases where after standard tests it is not possible to make a diagnosis or when the cause of the disease is unknown. ”
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The researchers claim that their test is sensitive at the level of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) - a method that allows to increase small concentrations of DNA fragments in a biological sample. However, even the best PCR methods can track no more than 20 not very different types of viruses.

“The test is so sensitive that it can distinguish between genetically related viruses,” co-author Todd Wylie rejoices. “Small genetic differences in viruses are often not detected by existing tests, and complicate the task of finding all variants of the virus in a single test.”

Before the new test becomes available to everyone, there will be a few more years of testing and testing of the new method.