Ultrasensitive, rapid diagnostic detects Ebola earlier than gold standard test
Credit: Michaela Kane, Duke University DURHAM, N.C. -- An interdisciplinary team of scientists at Duke University has developed a highly sensitive and rapid diagnostic test for Ebola virus (EBOV) infection. In monkeys infected with Ebola, this diagnostic, called the D4-assay, proved to be 1000 times more sensitive than the currently approved rapid diagnostic test and capable of detecting the virus a full day earlier than the gold standard polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test. This work, which appears in Science Translational Medicine on April 7, was done by biomedical engineers, molecular b...