A 15-Year Old Student Invents A Rapid Low Cost HIV Test
Being tested for HIV needs bravery and of course, money. That's one of the hindrances that an invidual faces in order for him/her to take the test. If the cost of the test deprives you from taking it, don't you worry anymore because you won't believe how great the invention of this 15-Year old high school student have made.
Nicole Ticea is currently a 10th grader at York House School in Vancouver, used Isothermic Nucleic Acid Amplification as part of a collaboration program with Simon Fraser University to develop this rapid low cost HIV test. This test allows future test takers to just place a drop of blood on a chip and it will be used to garner near instantaneous result to check if the said test-taker is infected or not.
The test is still being developed but this invention of a 15-Year old with the help of Simon Fraser University could do wonders in battling against HIV/AIDS. Nicole, even at a young age serves as a good role model to everyone to do their best in school and do something that would be beneficial to everyone.
The test is still a long way from widespread use, with its reliability needing to pass far more stringent review, before commercial partners can even be considered. Multiple HIV testing mechanisms exist, but none are considered perfect, leading to the widespread combination of two testing mechanisms to minimize the danger of false results. In this context, Ticea’s work could easily find a niche.
Ticea used techniques that have been successful in identifying other viral infections and applied them to HIV for the first time. Rather than looking for antibodies to HIV, as the majority of existing tests do, Ticea amplifies the virus itself. This removes the window during which people are infected, but still show up as negative on antibody tests because the immune system has yet to gear up its response. Existing viral amplification tests for HIV are expensive and time consuming. - IFLSCIENCE
Nicole Ticea is currently a 10th grader at York House School in Vancouver, used Isothermic Nucleic Acid Amplification as part of a collaboration program with Simon Fraser University to develop this rapid low cost HIV test. This test allows future test takers to just place a drop of blood on a chip and it will be used to garner near instantaneous result to check if the said test-taker is infected or not.
The test is still being developed but this invention of a 15-Year old with the help of Simon Fraser University could do wonders in battling against HIV/AIDS. Nicole, even at a young age serves as a good role model to everyone to do their best in school and do something that would be beneficial to everyone.
The test is still a long way from widespread use, with its reliability needing to pass far more stringent review, before commercial partners can even be considered. Multiple HIV testing mechanisms exist, but none are considered perfect, leading to the widespread combination of two testing mechanisms to minimize the danger of false results. In this context, Ticea’s work could easily find a niche.
Ticea used techniques that have been successful in identifying other viral infections and applied them to HIV for the first time. Rather than looking for antibodies to HIV, as the majority of existing tests do, Ticea amplifies the virus itself. This removes the window during which people are infected, but still show up as negative on antibody tests because the immune system has yet to gear up its response. Existing viral amplification tests for HIV are expensive and time consuming. - IFLSCIENCE
