Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Friday 14 June 2019

New gene tests for germs quickly reveal source of infections

By MARILYNN MARCHIONE searches for 1,200 bacteria,
AP Chief Medical Writer fungi, viruses and parasites
Brian Jetter was on life sup- at once and gives a result
port, a healthy 40-year-old within two days. The test
suddenly battling pneumo- showed high agreement
nia and sepsis, and a slew with standard lab testing
of tests had failed to find in a study in the journal Na-
the cause. ture Microbiology.
Mystery illnesses like this kill “The biggest issue is the
thousands of people each cost” — around $2,000 for
year when germs can’t be the Karius test, said Ali Tork-
identified fast enough to amani, a San Diego scien-
reveal the right treatment. tist who directs a genetics
Now genetic tests are help- conference that featured
ing to solve these cases. these tests in March. More
One finally was used to competition may lower the
search Jetter’s blood for price and lead to wider
bits of non-human genetic use, he said.
material from viruses, fungi Karius has its own lab for its
and the like. It detected test. Other companies of-
unusual bacteria that prob- fer software and tools that
ably got into the Connecti- hospitals can use to devel-
cut man’s lungs when he op their own gene-based
choked and accidentally In this March 15, 2019 photo, Brian Jetter poses for a portrait in La Jolla, Calif. tests. One of them, Arc Bio,
inhaled bits of a burger Associated Press based in California and
weeks earlier. fungus or some other things but also found others that rious or unusual cases. Massachusetts, offers vi-
With the right medicine, he can take a long time. standard tests missed. “For infectious disease, rus testing from blood and
recovered and went home Several companies and In all, 58 infections were you need to know the an- gives an answer in less than
to his 5-year-old son. university labs now offer diagnosed. The gene test swer today,” because a two days.
“I realized how fragile life gene-based tests on blood matched standard lab find- patient’s risk of dying goes IDbyDNA, based in San
is,” Jetter said. “No matter or spinal fluid. Once frag- ings in 19 cases, it found 13 up the longer the cause Francisco, uses a Utah lab
how healthy you are, the ments of foreign DNA or more that standard testing isn’t found, said Dr. Asim that works with 3,000 U.S.
smallest microbe can de- other genetic material are missed, and missed 26 that Ahmed, medical director hospitals. It gives an answer
stroy you.” found, their code is ana- the standard tests eventu- at Karius Inc. in about 48 hours once a
Doctors routinely use ge- lyzed, or sequenced, to ally found. The Redwood City, Califor- sample arrives, said its chief
netic tests to spot inherited identify bacteria, viruses, Doctors say the gene- nia, company sells a blood medical officer, Dr. Robert
diseases and guide cancer fungi and parasites caus- based tests could be a fast, test developed by Stanford Schlaberg, a University of
treatment. But using them ing sepsis, meningitis, en- non-invasive first step for se- University scientists that Utah pathologist.q
to detect infectious diseas- cephalitis and other dead-
es is so new that few doc- ly illnesses.
tors and even fewer pa- “The key advantage of se- Researchers: bitcoin’s carbon footprint
tients know they’re avail- quencing is it can look for
able. A study of one test everything at once” rather equal to Las Vegas
is published in Thursday’s than doing separate tests
New England Journal of for each virus or other mi- By FRANK JORDANS
Medicine. crobe that’s suspected, Associated Press
They are modernizing a said Dr. Charles Chiu, a mi- BERLIN (AP) — The virtual
field long overdue for an crobiologist at the Univer- currency bitcoin is respon-
overhaul. sity of California, San Fran- sible for the same amount
To identify bacteria, labs cisco. of carbon dioxide emissions
still rely on century-old He led the New England as a city like Las Vegas or
techniques from Louis Pas- Journal study that tried a Hamburg and efforts to re-
teur — putting a few drops spinal fluid test on 204 chil- duce its climate footprint
of blood or other sample in dren and adults with men- should be considered, re-
a lab dish and waiting days ingitis or encephalitis, dan- searchers said Thursday.
or sometimes weeks to see gerous illnesses that aren’t A study by researchers at
what germs grow. To test always caused by an infec- the Technical University of
for a virus, a doctor usually tion. Munich and the Massachu-
has to guess what the pa- The gene test wasn’t per- setts Institute of Technol-
tient is sick with. Testing for a fect. It missed some cases, ogy, examined how much In this Feb. 12, 2014 file photo Bitcoin buttons are displayed on a
table at the Inside Bitcoins conference in Berlin.
power is consumed by Associated Press
computers used to gener- tire bitcoin network was factors contributing to cli-
ate bitcoins and process responsible for 22-22.9 mil- mate change,” said Chris-
transactions. Writing in the lion tons of CO2 per year tian Stoll, one of the study’s
journal Joule, researchers — similar to a large Western authors. “However, the car-
said they then combined city or an entire develop- bon footprint is big enough
the results with the carbon ing country like Sri Lanka. to make it worth discussing
emissions from electricity Total global emissions of the possibility of regulating
production in the countries the greenhouse gas from cryptocurrency mining in
where the computers were the burning of fossil fuels regions where power gen-
located. They concluded were about 37 billion tons eration is especially car-
that, in late 2018, the en- last year. “There are bigger bon-intensive.” q