In New Short Talks Episode, Shannon Servoss Gives Update on COVID-19 Antibody Test Kit

Shannon Servoss

Shannon Servoss in the lab.

Shannon Servoss is likely the first University of Arkansas researcher to be part of a project that has received an emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

For the past several months, Servoss, an associate professor of chemical engineering and co-director of the Office of Undergraduate Research, has worked with Now Diagnostics, a Springdale biomedical company, to develop a rapid COVID-19 antibody test kit. In late May, the researchers learned that the kit had received the emergency use authorization.

In this month's Short Talks From the Hill, a research podcast of the University of Arkansas, Servoss discusses her experience with the project.

The kits can inform individuals who think they might have had Covid or are experiencing some long-term effects, though they never had a positive test. They can also help clinicians better understand what's going on when a vaccinated person contracts Covid, especially if it's a severe case.

"They want to find out if that person actually developed antibodies," Servoss says in the podcast. "And so in those special cases, somebody that's actually sick, they really need to know is that person immune or not. And in most cases, if you get severe illness, you didn't develop antibodies to the vaccine."

Servoss emphasizes that the test kit does not detect the various strains of coronavirus, but it can detect antibodies to the strains.

"The reason for that is that the protein that this (test kit) detects antibodies to is a protein that's pretty highly conserved across the strains," Servoss says in the podcast. "There are some minor mutations, but they're finding that the vaccines work well against multiple strains, and so there's good evidence that most likely this test would work well for different strains."

To listen to Servoss discuss this project, go to Arkansas Research, the home of research news at the University of Arkansas, or visit the "On Air" and "Programs" link at KUAF.com.

Short Talks From the Hill highlights research and scholarly work at the University of Arkansas. Each segment features a university researcher discussing his or her work. Previous podcasts can be found under the 'Short Talks From the Hill' link at arkansasresearch.uark.edu, the home of science and research news at the University of Arkansas.

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