Polymerase chain reaction

Nobody knew that Barooli Elsa was lurking here.

But it's good timing in some ways, because just a few years earlier, something called a PCR test had been invented.

You will remember this as the method used to rapidly diagnose COVID cases in the pandemic.

But in the 90s, this was revolutionary technology.

It was really only invented in about 1984, 85.

We were kind of the first people to think that maybe we could use PCR for diagnosis because otherwise you need a biopsy and it's very slow to culture.

So it was a much more rapid way of making a diagnosis.

But also we could look in the environment with PCR because People had been looking in the environment for mycobacterium ulcerans in Africa for years, never found it by culture.

Earlier maternal infection, particularly around conception and during the first trimester, is associated with the greatest risk of severe fetal injury and long-term sequelae.

So moving to the diagnosis of congenital CMV, congenital CMV has to be confirmed within the first 21 days of life, ideally with urine PCR.

And saliva PCR is not used for confirmation because it can lead to false positives due to breastfeeding.

Why 21 days? After birth, infants can acquire CMV, most commonly through breast milk.

There is an incubation period before postnatally or after birth acquired virus replicates and begins to shed.

So a positive PCR obtained within the first three weeks reflects infection acquired in utero.

Once we test beyond that window, a positive result may represent either congenital or postnatally acquired infection and we can no longer reliably distinguish between the two.

So how common is CMV? CMV is far more common than most people realize.

So let's talk about what to do.

So the very basics, if you're looking for a home or if you're in a home and you're like, is it safe? Is my office safe? I always recommend patients start with an ERMI, E-R-M-I, which is also known as QPCR.

That means qualitative PCR.

It's a dust sample.

What do you do?

Okay.

So Ermey start QPCR.

You can get that online.

It's hurting you.

I'm going PCR up there.

That's some of Hayes' comedies.

He's like, it was really uncomfortable when they had all the COVID testing going on and he had to pretend to also be uncomfortable with it.

Police suspected the red spots on Sabo Claw's right sleeve came from the victim's dog, Chief.

Dr. Halverson cut out a piece of the sleeve with the red stains on it and analyzed it with a PCR-based DNA test.

A little piece of that fabric is taken and put into a tube, and various buffers and so on are added to it.

Blood cells will come off the fabric into the liquid, and then the various treatments are done to extract the DNA from that.

It's a coronavirus.

And the PCR tests detect these things as well.

They detect fragments of coronaviruses.

Fragments, not viruses, but fragments of what could have been coronaviruses.

239.

Pooled Adaptive PCR Testing This article proposes adaptive pool testing which involves testing a combined sample from multiple people as a methodology to increase testing capacity for SARS-CoV-2 using PCR.

Pool tests involve that if a pool is detected positive, each sample from the pool will be tested separately.

Also, this article proposes an optimization algorithm for the pool size determine the optimum number of samples that can be combined into a single test in order to obtain the best results with minimum number of tests.

It's a totally different stool test.

All that's going to do is be looking for it's a PCR and that's just – looking for parasites basically so as opposed to running an advanced stool test like a dna-based stool test really maps what's going on in the gut you get key gut functional markers as well so say calprotectin for inflammation it's pancreatic elastase to make sure you're breaking down your food and digesting it properly uh there's beta-glucuronidase which is a detox marker which can get um when it's high can get impaired so you're not detoxing through your gut properly You're starting to recycle those toxins and hormones and things, which can lead to in females, estrogen dominance and other issues.

It's that high beta glucuronidase, um, Yeah, and then there's a range of other markers that looks at the function of the gut and how well that's performing.

You've got your zonulin, which is your leaky gut mark.