PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — You can take a COVID-19 test to find out if you’re positive. Now, scientists can take that swab sample and use it to find out exactly which variant is making you sick.
Cooper University Hospital in Camden is using a new machine to keep track of the COVID-19 variants spreading across New Jersey. Dr. Tina Edmonston, director of the molecular pathology lab at Cooper, said the Genexus Integrated Sequencer machine takes about 28 hours to deliver results.
“It is always important to know which variants are most prevalent in the population, because each variant behaves in a different way,” she explained. “Some variants may be more contagious; other variants may cause more severe disease. Knowing what’s going on in the population helps us to be vigilant.”
Related
Related
Right now, the gene sequencing machine is only being used to track the coronavirus.
“We use this technology for what’s called surveillance. This is not so much done for an individual patient because it might have an impact on their treatment,” she said. “This is really to help the state of New Jersey map which variants are going around in our population.”
Once the pandemic is over, she added, it can be used in other ways. For example, it can be used to determine the makeup of a tumor so treatments can be targeted to that specific cancer.