Tuberculosis infection prevention by quick testing

With a new DNA test, tuberculosis infection can be revealed so quickly that a patient doesn't have time to infect others.

The Norwegian biotechnology firm Genpoint is running trials, along with others financed by the Norwegian Research Council's biotechnology program, of new effective DNA tests at Ulleval University Hospital, the country's national laboratory for tuberculosis.

Norwegian health officials calculate that a person infected with tuberculosis, with today's diagnosis methods, can infect on average 20 others before the disease is detected and the patient can be isolated and treated.

The current manual test methods take at least a week, and the bacteria must incubate for up to eight weeks before a precise diagnosis can be made. This is a comprehensive process for both the patient and the laboratories that perform the tests. In addition, the tests must often be taken several times over a period of up to six months before it is certain what type of tuberculosis bacteria is being dealt with.

Genpoint's automated DNA method simplifies diagnostics and provides test results that are available in a few minutes at best and in a few hours at worst. Therefore, health personnel are able to test much larger groups, gaining much better and more effective control of the disease and its transmission.

The test methods are approved in the sense that Genpoint is in the process of fulfilling the requirements for documentation that have been set by the hospital laboratory in close cooperation with experts in the hospital milleu.

Genpoint makes use of magic spheres to isolate bacteria and holds a worldwide patent for the process. The spheres pull bacteria to themselves, and then dissolve the bacteria so that the DNA is released and absorbed by the spheres. With further analysis of the DNA, the bacteria can be identified. Both the cells and the DNA are captured by the same sphere surface, making it much easier to automate the process.