Group Testing
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Group Testing (also called
pooled testing)
The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance for
economic and healthcare purposes of efficient epidemiological testing.
Many commentators have highlighted the potential merits of
group testing for this purpose. In this context, group testing involves taking samples
from the different individuals being tested, splitting each sample into one or
more sub-samples, mixing the sub-samples in a controlled manner, applying tests
to these mixtures (rather than to each of the original samples) and then deriving
from the results of these grouped tests which of the individuals being tested
is infected.
In principle, group testing often allows us to identify the
test status of every individual to be tested using fewer tests on average than
the number of individuals being tested. In practice, current ways of applying
group testing in this context often involve extensive pipetting and can be
laborious and prone to operator error.
Nematrian concept paper
Mindful of the societal benefits that might accrue from more
efficient epidemiological testing, Nematrian has been researching how group
testing might more practically be applied to this problem. It has prepared a
short concept paper, Group
testing equipment designs for Covid-19 (or other epidemiological) testing,
that it hopes will contribute to these goals.
If you are interested in licensing this intellectual
property then please speak to your contact at Nematrian or email us at ContactUs@nematrian.com.*
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