🧫 One single test can now detect almost all known infections

• A test developed at UC San Francisco can identify viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites with 86 percent accuracy in neurological infections.
• The test analyzes all nucleic acids in a sample and provides results within 24 hours.
• The technology replaces multiple different tests with a single test, eliminating time-consuming guesswork in diagnosis and treatment of infections.

Faster diagnosis of neurological infections

A new genomic test developed at UC San Francisco can identify multiple infections. The test uses a technique called metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) to analyze all nucleic acids in a sample.

Charles Chiu, professor at UCSF, explains that the technology replaces multiple different tests with a single test, eliminating time-consuming guesswork in diagnosis and treatment of infections.

Between 2016 and 2023, the UCSF team analyzed nearly 5,000 cerebrospinal fluid samples. Of these, 14.4 percent were found to have an infection. In these cases, the test correctly identified the pathogenic organism in 86 percent of the cases.

Automation provides faster results

A version of the test for analyzing respiratory samples has been developed and automated. While the original test involves over 100 separate steps and can take 2-7 days to complete, the respiratory test requires only 30 minutes of manual work before robots and algorithms take over. The entire process provides results within 12-24 hours.

The test has proven capable of detecting respiratory viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, influenza A and B, and RSV in less than 24 hours, even when samples contain small amounts of virus.

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