Scalable, accurate assays capable of not only COVID-19 detection but actual immunity to the virus will be critical for social distancing, virus surveillance and treatment. And now researchers at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (UNC) believe they have developed such a test and that it can be ramped up and made available to test thousands of blood samples at laboratories that do not have the resources of commercial laboratories and large academic medical centers. The Diagnostic Challenge People can carry COVID-19 infection without exhibiting symptoms. Currently, COVID-19 testing is being performed only on the symptomatic. Testing all individuals, regardless of symptoms, would require assays capable of detecting not only the presence of COVID-19 antibodies but also their antibody levels. Unfortunately, assays for measuring neutralizing antibodies take about three days to complete and typically require special high-containment facilities necessary for safely working with infectious viruses. The UNC Test The new UNC test was developed from scratch by a team of researchers designated as emergency employees when the campus was shut down due to the pandemic. The team designed new antigens and used a large panel of SARS-CoV-2 patients and human and animal control samples. The UNC researchers, who published their […]