Science & Technology

Chemist Breaks Down How At-Home Covid Tests Work | WIRED

Over the past two years, you’ve likely taken a Covid rapid antigen test. A unique, biochemical reaction involving saline, tiny particles of gold, and paper with antibodies, is helping to give us quick and relatively accurate results. Dr. Kate Biberdorf, a chemist and author, explains the chemical process of the at-home tests (while taking one!)…

Published

on

Over the past two years, you’ve likely taken a Covid rapid antigen test. A unique, biochemical reaction involving saline, tiny particles of gold, and paper with antibodies, is helping to give us quick and relatively accurate results. Dr. Kate Biberdorf, a chemist and author, explains the chemical process of the at-home tests (while taking one!) to explain exactly how it works.

TikTok: @katethechemist
Instagram: @katethechemist
Twitter: @k8thechemist

Still haven’t subscribed to WIRED on YouTube? ►►
Listen to the Get WIRED podcast ►►
Want more WIRED? Get the magazine ►►

Follow WIRED:

Instagram ►►
Twitter ►►
Facebook ►►

Also, check out the free WIRED channel on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Android TV.

ABOUT WIRED
WIRED is where tomorrow is realized.

Chemist Breaks Down How At-Home Covid Tests Work | WIRED

69 Comments

  1. Noodles Styx

    February 28, 2022 at 6:32 pm

    Was expecting more of a ELI5 but at the fast pace and quick changes in the video, following was somewhat difficult and I still didn’t completely understand.

  2. Yevgeny Makarov

    February 28, 2022 at 6:33 pm

    Instead of telling to your nation how deadly situation in Ukraine is right how when a crazy old man is threatening the world with nuclear weapons, you post some silly videos, thanks ..

  3. I miss the 80s😎

    February 28, 2022 at 6:42 pm

    My safety director still doesn’t know what covid is after 3 long years, and he went to college

  4. I miss the 80s😎

    February 28, 2022 at 6:43 pm

    My boss needs help with covid guidelines

  5. Sanskar Wagley

    February 28, 2022 at 7:14 pm

    I’ve never taken a COVID test 😳

    • David T

      February 28, 2022 at 8:48 pm

      Same, but I’ve only left the house about once every 3 months in the past 2 years lol. Huge thanks to the ppl who deliver my stuff

    • cynthia van teylingen

      February 28, 2022 at 9:27 pm

      Same never tested either. Havent even seen the test.

    • My Surfing

      February 28, 2022 at 9:36 pm

      Good, it’s pointless landfill waste

  6. view youtube

    February 28, 2022 at 7:14 pm

    it’s not anybody…………

  7. Galactic Geographic

    February 28, 2022 at 7:33 pm

    why the actual F**K would you not start with the mouth first THEN do the nose????

  8. Pumpkin353

    February 28, 2022 at 8:00 pm

    So are saying that the Rona is just the Flu ???

    • My Surfing

      February 28, 2022 at 9:44 pm

      It replaced the flu for the first time in human history and behaves just like the flu with exactly the same stats as flu, congrats Captain Obvious, you solved one of life’s riddles 🤔😁 (even the high sounding death tolls is mostly elderly dying. It used to be a secondary cause of death before 2020 but 450,000 or so a year of elderly die with a flu or pneumonia just in the u.s.)

  9. kiffe22

    February 28, 2022 at 8:14 pm

    Were you in a rush to make this under 6 minutes?
    As someone with a more or less basic understanding of biology/chemistry this was absolutely impossible to follow.

    • Melissa Schulze

      February 28, 2022 at 9:50 pm

      If you’re interested, try googling Western Blot. It’s a common technique for recognizing proteins and it’s basically the same thing as this. There’s bound to be a lot of videos about Western Blot that explain pretty thoroughly since there’s a lot of high school and university kids who have to know it for their classes.

    • Jasmine Hung

      February 28, 2022 at 11:34 pm

  10. Casper R

    February 28, 2022 at 8:20 pm

    I hope we can at least replace the plastic with something else if we go forward with this massive scale use off single use items to test.

    • King of Cacti

      February 28, 2022 at 8:48 pm

      I think they use plastic as its easier to keep it sterile. I.e. cleaning the plastic before during and after use is easier than say cardboard

  11. Noah Beller

    February 28, 2022 at 8:35 pm

    What is expiring with the tests which seems to be about three months after purchase? Is the pH of the buffer or something else changing?

  12. aesthetac

    February 28, 2022 at 8:42 pm

    Im sorry a mask for a flu?

    • My Surfing

      February 28, 2022 at 9:40 pm

      Masks are a curious emotional placebo for people who don’t understand what microscopic means.

  13. Paul

    February 28, 2022 at 8:54 pm

    I’ve just been doing two drops

  14. LARSFSO

    February 28, 2022 at 9:05 pm

    WHY did you take it in the nose FIRST? In my country the order is the opposite.

  15. Sharon 🔥𝐆𝐨 𝐓𝐨 𝐌𝐲 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐥 [𝐋!𝐯𝐞]🔞

    February 28, 2022 at 9:06 pm

    What is expiring with the tests which seems to be about three months after purchase? Is the pH of the buffer or something else changing?

  16. My Surfing

    February 28, 2022 at 9:28 pm

    I can proudly say I’ve never taken part in this nonsense 😬😁

  17. Franco7

    February 28, 2022 at 10:03 pm

    Bold to blanket recommend swabbing the throat as none of the manufacturer’s have confirmed it will be more effective than following their known instructions which are there to prevent false positives. As you mentioned this test is highly pH sensitive and introducing a lot of saliva could throw it off depending on the test.

  18. Adam Leandro

    February 28, 2022 at 10:17 pm

    Iridocyclitis

  19. Smi Co

    February 28, 2022 at 10:21 pm

    Would be great if they explained the “C-line” as well

  20. VerballyCopulating

    February 28, 2022 at 10:27 pm

    Dayumn, suddenly I find Chemistry interesting.

  21. Mark Leach

    February 28, 2022 at 10:32 pm

    Good explanation of buffer action, but what was the gold doing? How did the color change exactly? I am a chemist and I don’t understand the “explanation”? Sorry!

  22. ZeroMajor01

    February 28, 2022 at 10:38 pm

    What does gender have to do with taking a test?

  23. Alvar Lagerlöf

    February 28, 2022 at 11:53 pm

    Weirdly we only do PCR tests over here.

  24. 4Nimatrix

    March 1, 2022 at 1:21 am

    The pacing of the video was too quick for someone thats not familiar with thr field or topic. It felt very rushed

  25. Infamous

    March 1, 2022 at 2:51 am

    lol nobody wants to keep this around, only cus for covid it’s nessesary

  26. Molly Montana

    March 1, 2022 at 3:15 am

    I wouldn’t swabbed my throat before my nose but I’m not a chemist ig

  27. SUSSY- 🔥𝐆𝐨 𝐓𝐨 𝐌𝐲 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐥 [𝐋!𝐯𝐞]🔞

    March 1, 2022 at 4:03 am

    The buffer contains detergents that disintegrate the membrane of the virus, setting the nucelocapsidproteins free which are detected by the test.

  28. Matt Kurn

    March 1, 2022 at 4:39 am

    You people are such SHEEP!

  29. Queenofwheels

    March 1, 2022 at 5:59 am

    Did she put her snot covered swab into her mouth?

  30. Andrew Petersen

    March 1, 2022 at 6:51 am

    This is literally my Chemistry professor at the University of Texas I’m dying

    • vixx p28

      March 1, 2022 at 4:41 pm

      She cute lol

    • Samarth P.

      March 4, 2022 at 5:37 pm

      I want to know how her teaching compares when she is in the classroom and here in the video. Is there a big difference? Is the topic more clear in the video or in the classroom?

    • None

      March 5, 2022 at 3:10 am

      wow dude

  31. Iromo Sushi

    March 1, 2022 at 8:49 am

    Test kits in our country has 2 swabs for your nose and throat…

  32. Matt Deritis

    March 1, 2022 at 9:20 am

    The psychedelic scallion genetically wail because teeth ontogenically communicate until a immense celsius. green grey grieving, normal nerve

  33. watchwinder

    March 1, 2022 at 9:32 am

    Imagine testing yourself for the illness that you’re triple vaccinated against 🤣🤣

  34. hamish hunkel

    March 1, 2022 at 9:38 am

    FINALLY! A CHEMIST! BUFFER SOLUTIONS!! YEAAAHHHHH!!!!

  35. Paddy

    March 1, 2022 at 10:36 am

    Swab the throat _before_ the nose, surely 🤢

  36. Stewart Smalls

    March 1, 2022 at 11:40 am

    I can barely conjugate verbs let alone acid/bases.

  37. tim ng

    March 1, 2022 at 11:41 am

    if you want to know how the T line is colored, search labels lateral flow immunoassay. There are gold nanoparticles, Horseradish peroxidase+luminol, colorimetric based. The whole mechanism is actually very smart. A simple control test can be detecting a certain protein present in all human samples, if the sample is indeed legit, C line should light up. the problem with acidic samples like coca cola is probably releasing all the gold NPs regardless if there is a legit antigen, so both C and T line can light up.

  38. Killermongo 7

    March 1, 2022 at 2:06 pm

    Short answer, they don’t.

  39. Duy Tran

    March 1, 2022 at 3:43 pm

    I kinda confuse on how to detect whether it is a false positive? so we grab the original buffer solution and pour it to the false result?

  40. Evelyn 👈𝓕**СК МЕ - СНЕ𝓒𝓚 𝓜𝓨 Р𝓡0𝓕𝓘𝓛Е 💗

    March 1, 2022 at 5:20 pm

    This is literally my Chemistry professor at the University of Texas I’m dying

  41. Zoey👈𝓕**СК МЕ - СНЕ𝓒𝓚 𝓜𝓨 Р𝓡0𝓕𝓘𝓛Е 💗

    March 1, 2022 at 5:32 pm

    The buffer contains detergents that disintegrate the membrane of the virus, setting the nucelocapsidproteins free which are detected by the test.

  42. Aria 💓𝔽**СК МЕ - СНЕℂ𝕂 𝕄𝕐 Рℝ𝟘𝔽𝕀𝕃Е💛

    March 1, 2022 at 5:41 pm

    The buffer contains detergents that disintegrate the membrane of the virus, setting the nucelocapsidproteins free which are detected by the test.

  43. 👉 Amelia 💋

    March 1, 2022 at 6:02 pm

    Dayumn, suddenly I find Chemistry interesting.

  44. morning breeze

    March 1, 2022 at 7:37 pm

    how does false positives happen?

  45. Erica lewis

    March 1, 2022 at 10:24 pm

    With a happy heart I thank Dr. Ogudugu for eliminating my genital herpes, his such a genius.

  46. Mags

    March 2, 2022 at 12:46 am

    The reason false positives happen with soft drinks/ juice etc is that the low pH causes the antibodies to denature. When antibodies are denatured, they lose their structure and can become sticky. This happens because the bonds that were holding it in shape are no longer within the structure, and instead on the outer which makes the antibodies somewhat sticky.
    These sticky denatured antibodies (both the ones labelled with the gold and the ones bound to the test region of the strip) bind each other at the test region and the accumulation of the bound gold particles (red/pink in colour) causes a false positive result.

    In the video, she gets the false positive tests to change to negative by adding the buffer solution which returns the antibodies to their optimal pH. When the antibodies are returned to their optimal pH, they fold back into their desired structure (renaturation) and are no longer sticky. This means the antibodies that were sticking to each other at the test region become free, and the antibodies labelled with gold are washed off the test region.

    Denaturation is not always reversible. If proteins are damaged beyond a certain point, they can not be returned to their optimal structure. So i wonder what would happen if a stronger acid like vinegar was used. Or alternatively, boiling/very hot water 🤔 someone test these please and let me know 😅

  47. Sophia Uy

    March 2, 2022 at 8:13 am

    Man did she just stick a swab in her mouth after swirling in into her nostrils

  48. Aldin

    March 2, 2022 at 3:29 pm

    Why is she doing her nose THEN throat? wtf

  49. Doctor Ricky

    March 3, 2022 at 1:00 pm

    I really wanna be the first plastic surgeon featured on wired. Let’s go! The reconstructive stuff is so interesting. You feature so many other doctors. There are so many people in your world that have questions for a guy like me 🙏🏻

  50. Bella B

    March 3, 2022 at 10:56 pm

    She isn’t even doing it properly

  51. deleted jkcndsnsdnkcj

    March 4, 2022 at 6:38 am

    *pretends to understand this*

  52. Calvin Kong

    March 4, 2022 at 9:16 am

    Thx dr for these explanations..helping us so much ..

  53. H

    March 5, 2022 at 5:04 am

    I used these chemicals for my meth lab.🤠 dont worry folks I was wearing a mask while doing it

  54. Michael B

    March 7, 2022 at 12:39 am

  55. Reece Rogers

    March 7, 2022 at 8:30 pm

    Enjoyed watching this!

  56. Dane Reads

    March 8, 2022 at 4:54 pm

    Did… did she just swab her nose and then her throat, rather than the other way around?

  57. Alumlovescake

    March 9, 2022 at 4:53 pm

    What person swabs the nose first?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Trending

Exit mobile version