during the past two years you’ve likely made a covet rapid antigen test and you probably know what to do swab swirl and wait for reactions a unique biochemical reaction involving saline minuscule specks of golden and paper with antibodies is helping to give us rapid and relatively accurate decisions i’ve never feel more attractive in my life okay three four mississippi five today kate is taking a covet test while interpreting the biochemical reactions 15 mississippi i’m gonna go the other way okay now i’m gonna do the disgusting thing and fasten this in the back of my throat okay okay that’s all i can do all right an epidemiologist reputation michael mina he is strongly recommending for this particular variant for omicron that you swab in the back of your throat and your snout if you’re gonna do the rapid research and so we’re just looking for the most prominent viral quantity some people are swabbing their snout and coming a negative and then they swab their throat and getting a positive and that is just supporting the fact that omicron is clearly living in our throat we are having a high viral onu there and it’s more easily detected if you swap there once we’ve mustered our sample the chemistry starts to begin and molecular personnels make our sample in a buffer solution so the buffer solution is almost entirely salt water and so it’s like 99.7 salt water which is really sodium chloride in liquid on top of that we have a conjugate battery-acid and a conjugate cornerstone and so these are two different versions of a phosphate molecule one is called sodium hydrogen phosphate and the other one is called potassium dihydrogen phosphate and they fasten the solution’s ph into about a ph of 7. 4 this is where the chemistry comes in the battery-acid and the locate in the buffer solution create a conjugate acid-base pair a conjugate acid and base are two different molecules that are almost identical except for one hydrogen atom so one slouse has the hydrogen atom one portion is not and buffer mixtures are resistant to big changes in ph so if an battery-acid “il be back soon” the conjugate basi is going to eat that up and keep it at a ph of seven. 4 if a cornerstone comes in the conjugate battery-acid is going to eat that segment up and again fastening the ph in at 7.4 that ph of seven. 4 the same ph is our blood helping to simulated the conditions of the human body[ Music] one two three four beautiful now that our sample is locked in with a ph of 7. 4 we can see whether we are positive or negative and that insignificant discern where it says s that’s where nanoparticles of gold reside such a insignificant extent of amber in there you couldn’t sell it you cannot see it you can’t turn it into a pendant or anything it is absolutely minuscule the gold is connected to an antibody and so there’s kind of like a chunk of gold and an antibody right here and if that discontinue protein from the covid virus exists in the specimen antibody one is going to reach out and seizure it those antibodies are immune responses to a specific antigen an antigen is the part of the virus that is easily distinguishable so technically pollen could be an antigen any foreign body that comes into your torso could be an antigen but a lot of times we talk about it in the context of a virus and so if gold nanoparticle plus antibody one plus covid virus goes up to that t level antibody two now reaches out and grabs onto that covid virus and locks it into residence so you’ve got gold antibody one covid and then antibody two stuck on that t direction and now boom you’ve got a complexion vary so a positive experiment is going to happen right away as soon as that amber nanoparticle reaches that t statu and the antibody gives onto the covid virus you’re going to see that colour change now a negative test is essentially a lack of a positive experiment and so what we’re doing is just making sure that in that allotted time that t stage never alterations colours now there are some caveats as to how accurately your research results come in number one would be if you swabbed accurately laboratory scientists are getting the best decisions because they know exactly how to perform these measures followed by healthcare workers their second and then the third is the regular the rest of us that are just at home doing that second thing that could be used to identify your evaluations is your viral onu so how much of that virus is actually sitting in your organization and there’s also ways beings cheat the test in fact a few tick tocks have shown research with coca-cola zero sugar strawberry juice or beings vigour get a positive arise these rapid exams are very ph confidential that’s why we use the buffer to lock our test into a ph of seven. 4 if we start introducing something like soda which has a ph around three or something like juice which has a ph around four you’re going to immediately mess with the ph of your test and that’s going to completely belie the research results of the test and you might get a false positive you might get a false negative but it’s just unquestionably not accurate so parents out there if your teenager is cheating by use soda or something to get a false positive to get out of class the best way you can figure that out is grasp that original buffer mixture shake it over that tea line and if it was messed with if soda or juice was utilized you’re going to immediately see it switch back and you’ll get the accurate result which would likely be a negative now for the first time everybody no matter who you are what you look like what your gender is you are actually going through these at-home tests and i think that’s really valuable and kind of neat that we’re all at home scientists i truly hope we utilization this technology to move forward with the flu that would be my goal if we could use this every single season if you think you have the flu test yourself before you go outside wear a mask still i would love to see that moving forward because that’s just going to be incredibly helpful for our public health
