Laboratory test tube HYRIS(TM)

for forensic applicationscylindrical

Antibodies and T cells act together to prevent pathogen spread and remove virus-infected cells. Imagine that the infected cells are the target your immune system needs to destroy – antibodies work like ‘markers’ which guide T cells, you can consider them as ‘missiles’ in this case, to track down and hit the target that has been labelled by those markers. Thus the intensity of T cells activity in patient’s body is a strong indicator on whether or not the immune system is fighting against COVID and as a result, measuring T cells response is an innovative approach for monitoring mass immunity against COVID-19 pandemic. The new test kit leveraging bCUBETM, are run in two stages: 1. T cell activation in collected samples; 2. Messenger RNA is detected and measured to quantify the level of T-cells which are specific to immune response against COVID-19 viruses. If specific SARS-CoV-2 T cells are present in the blood sample under analysis – from either vaccination or previous infection – they can be activated. The T-cells are activated by specific peptide pool used in the first stage. However, if SARS-CoV-2 specific T cells are not present in the sample under analysis, they cannot be activated by the peptide pool and no cytokine mRNA synthesis will occur in the end of first stage. This will result a negative result in the RT-PCR test in the second stage. The current workflow utilizes direct amplification which simplifies the procedure and reduce turnaround time. By combining RT-PCR technology, the kit measures specific mRNA of the cytokines associated with the activated, SARS-CoV-2 specific T cells.