As world leaders prepare to meet this month at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Egypt, journalists and communications professionals around the globe are gearing up to cover the negotiations. And a new center at the USC Annenberg School is ready to improve the impact of climate communication.,
Armed with state-of-the-art breathnomics equipment, thanks to a grant from the VCH Research Institute as well as donations from the Leung family and Beedie Foundation, researchers initially tested patients in Vancouver General Hospital and determined they were able to detect COVID-19. The detection works by collecting a breath sample and then analyzing it for “volatile organic compounds.” The sample is then run through a highly sensitive machine called a gas chromatography mass spectrometer at the lab, which takes about an hour to produce a result. While researchers are confident in the test’s ability to detect the virus, the goal is to eventually narrow down which specific compounds constitute a COVID-19-positive result. Once that is achieved, the idea is to program smaller, point-of-care machines that would be used at large-scale events and airports to screen for the virus yielding a result in less than a minute.
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VANCOUVER A swab up the nose and gargling salt water are two of the ways people are now tested for COVID-19 in B.C., but researchers have been working on a fast and non-invasive option that would involve giving a breath sample. Interventional respirologist Dr. Renelle Myers – who works at Vancouver General Hospital and BC Cancer and is also a clinician scientist at the BC Cancer Research Institute – told CTV News Vancouver her team had been preparing to study using breath samples for the early detection of lung cancer. When the pandemic hit, we knew the potential of breath, and thought let s change gears and see if we can diagnose COVID-19 through breath analysis, because it would provide a very rapid, non-invasive way to do it, she said, and added their work in relation to lung cancer will continue.