Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
I don't know what is happening here but posts from last night have been removed.
DNA is a simple structure and primers can be designed against conserved regions that can't mutate otherwise it will kill the virus. This means Novacyt's primers will work.
LFTs that target the S protein will struggle with new variants as new variants S proteins adapt to evade binding of the immune system and at the same time evade binding in LFTs
It has been discussed many times about the other opportunities in the NHS for PCR. There are many new opportunities but even for the existing ones it takes several days, sometimes even weeks to get a result for PCR. This is not Covid testing. This has massive implications for care and cost. There are so many opportunities for Novacyt for other income streams.
Martin makes comments deriding the health minister for being a school teacher and his lack of expertise to comment on vaccine matters. Thankfully, for Martin's reputation, an economist is qualified to comment on PCR technology.
A fast PCR is certainly feasible for many applications, extreme PCR would apply to only select situations.
The limiting factor to the roll out of fast PCR to covid and other applications is the quality of management and lack of technological understanding across the NHS. Many lives are being lost and savings not being made because there aren't the skills to spot where these new technologies can be applied.
His experience, and hopefully contacts, in those key markets could be very beneficial. He is in marketing, a sector I know little about and can't comment on how strong his background is
I don't want to upset Shaun, I don't know what his accountancy background is, but his professional qualification is not the strongest and he is not biotech background. I think it does help if support staff have experience of the sector.
I don't remember the Siemens guy. I remember the CFO, his CV wasn't impressive.
A PhD shows commitment, not brains. I've worked with a lot of them, some talented, others poor. A PhD is fairly equivalent wherever obtained and is not like undergraduate where Oxbridge is a long way ahead of some universities. He has no clinical background which is surprising given his job title but they can be misleading.
Those appointments don't have an oncology background I wouldn't read much into it. One has an MSc in cancer but those courses are where basic lab skills are learned, the cancer bit is to attract more people to the course. The other is not a cancer specialist.
I am generally not impressed by most of Novacyt's appointments. I wonder if their low salaries are restricting who they can get.
Spinnaker - I don't know the ratio of asymptomatic to symptomatic cases as this would have to be factored in. I also don't know if those 10% /90% are based on models or real data, if real data whether they were asympmtomatic or symptomatic.
If real data then most likely symptomatic and they would likely have a different shedding profile to asymptomatic cases.
All symptomatic cases would know they had covid symptoms and their PCR positive they would know would be after or before their symptoms
The LFTs are trying to be used for asymptomatic cases. Deeks is saying that LFTs can't pick a lot of them up. False positives are not a major issue as can be ruled out with another test day or 2 later
Apologies as post rushed, as always as have a few other things to attend to
SleepyDave - what Deeks is saying is that there is insufficient data to support the idea that LFTs pick up all infectious cases and from what date there is it looks like they don't pick up a large proportion of infectious cases
Ct numbers should also no themselves be used as a proxy for true viral load, at least without other details such as which kits used and primer sets used as efficiency varies.
I don't know the exact wording of what you are referencing but terms like most have no place if that what they used and is evidence itself they have insufficient data
Spinnaker - of course if LFTs can be calibrated to detect infectious cases that would be ideal but that is the problem. It doesn't look like the sensitivity can be got high enough unless you fudge the data on what is infectious - as Deeks has pointed out.
LFTs are taking so long because they can't get the sensitivity high enough.
That is certainly something that needs to be addressed. How the virus loads change over time and how this maps to infectivity and to the thresholds of the tests.
As PCR is more sensitive it is probably the case that 1 PCR test a week is picks up more cases than 2 LFTs as the PCR will pick up people in the earlier, and later part of the disease. Although the later part is probably no longer infectious.
Thanks for the links.
I am not sure it is possible to be too rampy regarding genomic medicine.
I've mentioned it before but now that protein structures can be predicted from their sequences genome medicine can be utilised fully.
Costs are coming down and it will be used for risk stratification and treatments. Cancer treatment will involve sequencing the cancer and normal cells, identifying the mutations, then working out how this affects protein folding and picking/designing a drug to specifically target that protein.
The market goes far beyond infections diseases.
The NHS will love it as it saves money and the UK is committed to being a world leader.
If Novacyt get involved with this in any capacity they will do very well
A highly sensitive and specific LFT would be great for everyone. But facts are what matter and vaccination appears to decrease viral load by 4 and some models suggest much more. Assuming a 100% efficient PCR, which it never is, that translates to a 2 Ct movement in detection threshold. Which we all know what that does to AVCTs data from yesterday
Soder - as ATISHA says people won't do it. Those LFTs if sent to homes will sit there unused like the ones at hospitals. Testing will be driven by employers and they will want effective tests.
VanV - you still haven't said how LFTs will be used in a vaccinated population with new strains appearing?
Soder - but you can't LFT at each of those venues - too expensive and will take to long. They will have to do it say 2 times a week. But if everyone is vaccinated then the Ct value will be too high and they will all be falsely negative.
Mass testing in a vaccinated population will probably have to be something like PCR once a week or so.
Vaccination looks like it decreases viral load so as time goes on and more are vaccinated the efficacy of LFTs will decrease further.
LFTs will become increasingly useless. Unless new strains take over and viral loads increase again but then PCR will be needed more than ever