Sample pooling methods for efficient pathogen screening: Practical implications.

ABSTRACT: Due to the large number of negative tests, individually screening large populations for rare pathogens can be wasteful and expensive. Sample pooling methods improve the efficiency of large-scale pathogen screening campaigns by reducing the number of tests and reagents required to accurately categorize positive and negative individuals. Such methods rely on group testing theory which mainly focuses on minimizing the total number of tests; however, many other practical concerns and tradeoffs must be considered when choosing an appropriate method for a given set of circumstances. Here we use computational simulations to determine how several theoretical approaches compare in terms of (a) the number of tests, to minimize costs and save reagents, (b) the number of sequential steps, to reduce th

SUBMITTER: Furstenau TN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7657563 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature