Study leader Ying Zhang, MD, PhD, a professor in the Bloomberg School’s Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, and his colleagues tweaked a test typically used for simply counting DNA in samples in the lab. Using the test, they were able to quantify how many Borrelia burgdorferi are alive and how many are dead after each drug was added to the bacteria. The method stains the living bacteria green and the dead or dying bacteria red in a way that filters out the noise that can corrupt existing tests.
“It’s superior to the current gold standard for testing Borrelia viability,” Zhang says. “This could become be the new gold standard.”
- See more at: http://healthmojo.org/…/new-test-shows-promise-drug-rehab…/…
