The Prism Test for Blood Donations

Video Transcript

"The viral market testing. Now we're excited about this instrument, the industry now is moving to a faster more automated format. So this instrument is called the Abbot Prism. It's really unique in that it runs six channels. So it has the capability to run all of the viral markers now that two of them we run with a bead technology. This technology is actually going to replace the bead technology. Right now it runs HCV, it runs Surface Antigen, and it runs HB4 and HTLV. We'll become live with HTLV on this instrument in about two weeks. We're excited about that, it's totally automated. The difference from the bead technology is that the entire reaction happens in this tray so there's, each well represents donor sample and you can kind of see there's a little white plug in the bottom of it and the way this assay works is we will pipette serum into the assay. Then we'll pipette the reagents and if there is that lock and key reaction that happens then it will be physically trapped in that glass matrix. So, it will not be able to fall down into the blotter in the bottom of the tray so it's kind of going to stay up on the top there. So we will then add the reagents and the coloring reagent again and then if that reaction happens, we're going, the very last reagent excites the photons they call them from this reaction and they just pop off like, kind of like Alka-Seltzer you know, effervescence, and as it pops off it counts them as it pops. So the more photons you pop off then they're positive, if you don't pop any off then your negative. This tray now is totally automated. So the samples, the sample rack will actually go, be, slide right into the instrument there and then the tray will be dropped down. It will be delivered into the instrument and it just moves through its stations. Serum is added, the reagents are added and it goes on down through its stations until it gets to the very last station which is about here. Which is the camera and it will actually read the photons if it shuts off and produces the test results fast so where it take in our old bead technology it takes eight hours until the test is finished, we can run four tests on this instrument and done in three and a half hours. It's much quicker, it's a little more sensitive, it allows us to pick up the virus in a little lower load in the body. So instead of taking about two weeks it can pick it up in about six or seven days."