Mutant metaphors: Frankenstein in the era of COVID-19.

Since its debut, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein has, fittingly, assumed a life of its own. In today's cultural landscape, the mere mention of 'mutant' evokes the language of Othering, including Frankensteinian metaphors, such as those used to describe the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. When scientists referred to omicron as a Frankenstein variant, they demonstrated the inherent mutability of the myth-a myth that is crucial in biomedicine. In this article, the authors examine the shifting nature of Frankenstein metaphors and consider how they function in what Priscilla Wald refers to as outbreak narratives in the context of the USA's COVID-19 policies. The authors point to the ready instatement of travel bans as evidence of how such a potent myth is used to create and sell public policy. In response to such xenophobic policies, the authors apply Donna Haraway's concept of 'boundary breakdowns' in order to reimagine relationships with mutancy. They examine how moving past the idea of mutant is other in contemporary virus narratives may offer a way to reconfigure our relationships of self and other and move beyond the hegemonic and nativist policies of the present.

Field-deployable, rapid diagnostic testing of saliva for SARS-CoV-2.

To safely re-open economies and prevent future outbreaks, rapid, frequent, point-of-need, SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic testing is necessary. However, existing field-deployable COVID-19 testing methods require the use of uncomfortable swabs and trained providers in PPE, while saliva-based methods must be transported to high complexity laboratories for testing. Here, we report the development and clinical validation of High-Performance Loop-mediated isothermal Amplification (HP-LAMP), a rapid, saliva-based, SARS-CoV-2 test with a limit of detection of 1.4 copies of virus per µl of saliva and a sensitivity and specificity with clinical samples of > 96%, on par with traditional RT-PCR based methods using swabs, but can deliver results using only a single fluid transfer step and simple heat block. Testing of 120 patient samples in 40 pools comprised of 5 patient samples each with either all negative or a single positive patient sample was 100% accurate. Thus, HP-LAMP may enable rapid and accurate results in the field using saliva, without need of a high-complexity laboratory.

Direct diagnostic testing of SARS-CoV-2 without the need for prior RNA extraction.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an urgent need for a rapid, point of care diagnostic testing that could be rapidly scaled on a worldwide level. We developed and tested a highly sensitive and robust assay based on reverse transcription loop mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) that uses readily available reagents and a simple heat block using contrived spike-in and actual clinical samples. RT-LAMP testing on RNA-spiked samples showed a limit of detection (LoD) of 2.5 copies/µl of viral transport media. RT-LAMP testing directly on clinical nasopharyngeal swab samples in viral transport media had an 85% positive percentage agreement (PPA) (17/20), and 100% negative percentage agreement (NPV) and delivered results in 30 min. Our optimized RT-LAMP based testing method is a scalable system that is sufficiently sensitive and robust to test for SARS-CoV-2 directly on clinical nasopharyngeal swab samples in viral transport media in 30 min at the point of care without the need for specialized or proprietary equipment or reagents. This cost-effective and efficient one-step testing method can be readily available for COVID-19 testing world-wide, especially in resource poor settings.