Comparison study clarifies improvements of EXPAR COVID-19 test

The speed, precision and ease of use for a new COVID- 19 testing technique has been established by researchers from the University of Birmingham. These plan to be used in entertainment environments, airport terminals upon arrival, and in isolated locations where covid-19 testing centres are inaccessible.

Researchers carried out a three-way study to compare the tests and approve the claim that the EXPAR (Exponential Amplification Reaction) process is as sensitive but quicker than the existing PCR and LAMP tests.

It (the study) confirmed that the RTF-EXPAR method translates less than ten strands of RNA into billions of duplicates of DNA in just ten minutes.
Professor Tim Dafforn explained how “Both the reverse transcription and amplification steps slow down existing COVID assays which are based on nucleic acid detection, compared to antigen tests such as lateral flow which do not have these steps. However, while this makes lateral flow tests faster than those based on PCR and LAMP, in return, they are typically less sensitive. An ideal test would be both sufficiently sensitive and speedy – our test, called RTF-EXPAR, achieves this goal.”

He added, “EXPAR amplifies DNA at a single temperature, thus avoiding lengthy heating and cooling steps found in PCR. However, while LAMP also uses a single temperature for amplification, EXPAR is a simpler and a more direct process, in which much smaller strands are amplified. This makes EXPAR an even faster DNA amplification technique than not only PCR but also LAMP.”

Professor Andrew Beggs said, “The testing used swabs containing a typical range of viral loads seen during the pandemic and had a six-minute cut-off time. The analysis showed RTF-EXPAR’s sensitivity is equivalent to quantitative PCR testing, with a positive predictive value of eighty-nine per cent and a negative predictive value of ninety-three per cent. We expect to publish the full results of this testing in the near future.”