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Scaredy, I took this to mean they were home tests that were being sent to labs. Presumably the labs need to try out processing them?
https://trademarks.ipo.gov.uk/ipo-tmcase/page/Results/1/UK00003519801
Maybe its a follow back. lol.
Interesting article about mutation of the Covid virus:
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2020/11/19/commentary/world-commentary/covid-19-mutated-can-vaccines-keep/
To be putting this PIN out, the feasibility study was likely very successful:
“Following a feasibility study (‘P1’), the initiation of targeted pilot studies are proposed as the next step in mobilising mass spectrometry for Covid-19 testing.”
One reason why this will turn out to be a blue day imo.
Picture if Big Al on the front with ‘BIAS’ written underneath in big letters.
Who wants one?
(BIAS = Believe In Alistair Smith)
Try not to shiit your pants tomorrow if the motherload requires another week or two people.
Does this sound familiar taken the same document:
“ some Ag-RDTs are likely to at least meet and likely exceed minimum performance requirements in the early phase of the illness (within the first 5-7 days, when viral loads and risk of transmission are highest). ”
and
“ Though these antigen detection RDTs (Ag-RDTs) are substantially less sensitive than NAAT, they offer the possibility of rapid, inexpensive and early detection of the most infectious COVID-19 cases in appropriate settings.”
Go back and look at the recent RNS which uses wording “meet and exceed’ and ‘most infectious”.
Add that to references to ‘exquisite’ specificity of Affimers. Sir Al really has told us that the LFD works sufficiently well for the mass testing application.
Apologies, this should be a reply to EnergyShares post which it comes from.
Forget sensitivity, it is specificity that really matters:
“ Use of Ag-RDTs is not recommended in settings or populations with low expected prevalence of disease (e.g. screening at points of entry, blood donation, elective surgery), especially where confirmatory testing by NAAT is not readily available. Such use will not be possible until there are more data from high-quality studies confirming high specificity (>99%) of one or more of the commercialized Ag-RDT test kits.”
Don’t take my word for it, ask the WHO. If you have ‘exquisite’ specificity (wording from Avacta website) then the level of false positives comes down to a level where mass testing becomes viable:
https://apps.who.int/iris/rest/bitstreams/1302653/retrieve
Exactly. I’m buying (with what little isn’t already in!).
Stop thinking small folks (LFD). Start thinking BIG (Affimer platform in dozens and dozens of products and applications worldwide).
This is gonna blow very soon. DYOR (excluding China).
Not even £500 on HL.
MMs hoovering up.
You would imagine their being a ‘no publicity’ clause in the contract which would prevent Avacta from giving a running commentary.
This tweet suggests they don’t want test details accidentally falling into the public domain:
https://twitter.com/falcon_study/status/1308903374180491267?s=21
Ignore the weird question marks!
?So Phase 2 minimum acceptable performance is 96% specificity and 53% sensitivity??
?The updated Avacta website describes the specificity of Affimers as ‘exquisite’.?
For me, the date of the planned company presentation is no accident. It was agreed quietly with HMG. The delay has given Boris a bit of breathing space before the press pick up that Avacta have a working rapid home test.
From the updated website:
“Engineered specificity
Large binding surface obtained through two 9 amino acid loops enable Affimer® proteins to bind with high-Affinity and exquisite selectivity. In-vitro phage display selection allows for a tailored screening approach to discriminate between closely related targets.“
EXQUISITE SELECTIVITY!
I’ve collected three snippets of information that I wonder might go together:
1. A few weeks back there was a job advert out for a software engineer to work on an LFD reader app. BBI I think. The ad struck me at the time as being heavy on the requirement for image processing experience.
2. A post about the SureScreen test where it was mentioned that the sensitivity of the test can be improved through the use of a reader device.
3. £1M funding from Innovate UK for an LFD reader (when a reader app already exists and looks pretty complete / mature already).
Could it be that we have a highly specific test that needs a little help during the reading stage in the form of image processing?
Image processing software can do things the human eye might struggle with like integrating rows of pixels or looking at hue shift.
Using image processing for this purpose does appear to be a thing:
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2019/lc/c9lc00104b#!divAbstract
https://res.mdpi.com/d_attachment/sensors/sensors-18-04026/article_deploy/sensors-18-04026.pdf
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/19160847.pdf
Could it be that the delay in ‘tech transfer’ is not the LFD at all. It is the move from a fixed camera / PC based system to a smartphone app for automated high sensitivity reading.
All this will do is flush out more presentations and more data from Avacta. You know what the sp will do then of course...