UCSF professor working on quicker test for coronavirus
An infectious disease expert at UCSF is working on a quick diagnostic test for the deadly coronavirus that has rapidly spread from Wuhan, China, to spark global concern and prompt public health preparations in at least two Bay Area counties.
Dr. Charles Chiu, a professor of laboratory medicine and infectious diseases and director of a center that studies emerging pathogens, has partnered with San Francisco company Mammoth Biosciences to create a simple test that could diagnose the new coronavirus within several hours.
The only way to currently diagnose the virus, officially known as 2019nCoV, is a sixhour molecular test conducted in laboratories by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Chiu said. But the overall turnaround time can be up to 24 hours when transport time is included. The CDC plans to deploy these testing materials to state and county public health labs across the country.
The UCSF test, however, might be able to diagnose the virus within two hours in “point of care” settings, like doctor’s offices, emergency rooms and airport screening sites — and it could be ready within weeks to be made widely available.
“The hope is that this can really address the need for rapid testing,” Chiu said.
Nasal swabs would be collected from a patient, placed into a tube and mixed with a reactant. The clinician could then place a strip in the tube and get a reading based on its color.
The technique, which uses CRISPR technology developed by Mammoth, has been used to detect other viruses, including the Zika virus, Chiu said.
His team is also working on rapid genome sequencing to more quickly learn information about viruses that can be critical to public health officials. Scientists have already sequenced the new coronavirus genome, but Chiu wants to speed up the process to three or four hours. The genome of a virus helps officials monitor how it evolves and spreads.
UCSF’s lab is also working on another diagnosis method based on “host response biomarkers,” Chiu said. People can be infected by the Wuhan coronavirus without displaying symptoms, meaning a nasal swab would contain only trace amounts of the virus and could be misdiagnosed. A more definitive test would sequence the genome of the patient to see how their DNA was affected by the virus.
“This is not something that, initially, can be done in one to two hours, but it is something that in the future I think is going to be very, very useful,” Chiu said.
As of Thursday, six people in the United States had been diagnosed with the new coronavirus, including two in Southern California. People in 36 states are being tested for the virus, according to the CDC.
No cases have been confirmed in the Bay Area, but San Francisco activated its emergency operations center on Monday to centralize resources in the event of a local case.
More than 7,800 people — mostly in China — have been sickened and 170 people had died as of Thursday, according to the CDC.
Scientists still don’t know a lot about the new coronavirus, Chiu said. It could evolve to become more severe or infectious, for example, or it could be quickly eradicated.
“That’s why it’s really important for us to be vigilant, but at the same time not to panic,” he said.