Herpes Simplex Virus Type 2 (HSV-2) is a common human pathogen that causes life-long illness. The US prevalence of HSV-2 infection is 11.9% for individuals between 15 and 49 years of age. Individuals with HSV-2 infection are more likely to contract and spread other sexually-transmitted infections. Eighty percent of individuals with HSV-2 are unaware of their infection, in part because of the social stigma associated with in-clinic testing for sexually-transmitted infections. We conducted an initial evaluation of a prototype smartphone-based serological lateral-flow immunoassay (LFA) for HSV-2 infection that uses strontium aluminate persistent luminescent nanoparticles (nanophosphors) as reporters. When applied to a test panel of 21 human plasma/serum samples varying in anti-HSV titer, the nanophosphor HSV-2 LFA had 96.7% sensitivity and 100% specificity for detection of HSV-2 infection. The sensitivity of the nanophosphor HSV-2 LFA was higher than that of commercially-available rapid HSV-2 assays tested with the same panel. Analysis of the iPhone nanophosphor HSV-2 LFA strip images with our custom smartphone app gave greater reproducibility compared to ImageJ analysis of strip images. The smartphone-based nanophosphor LFA technology shows promise for private self-testing for sexually-transmitted infections (STI).

847an abrasion loss of 3.57 cc. per hour, then the horsepower required to produce a loss of 0.28 cc. per hour should not be greater than cates that when there is serious contamination extraction introduces a radical change in the results on the abrasion machine.

We describe double-antibody procedures for determining alpha-fetoprotein in human serum. An equilibrium procedure can be done in 24 h with a sensitivity of at least 4 mug/liter and coefficient of variation of 5.5%. There are no interferences from normal human sera or sera with certain commonly seen chemical abnormalities. We also describe and discuss sequential procedures that range in sensitivity from 250 ng to 1mug/liter and require 24-48h incubation. The precise (mid-range)portion of the dose/response curve for sequential procedures can be shifted to higher or lower values by an adjustment of the time of preliminary incubation of antibody with unlabeled antigen. With a 37 degrees C incubation, a sequential procedure can be completed in 7 h. Sensitivity is 1 mug/liter, and coefficient of variation 8.0%. The relative merits of the above assay procedures are discussed. The double-antibody redioimmunoassay is twice as sensitive as the Farr procedure [J. Infect. Dis. 103, 239 (1958)], and it is free of the large and variable nonspecific precipitation that accompanies the precipitation of bound antigen with sodium sulfate solution. Double-antibody radioimmunoassay is superior to enzyme immunoassay in both sensitivity and precision.

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The procedure here described may be employed to advantageIn the determination of methoxyl groups in methyl esters (6).As an example, a sample of dimethyl tartrate was saponified with 4 ml. of 5 N sodium hydroxide. After 3 ml. of distillate had been collected, the latter was diluted and its methanol content de-965 termined by the procedure described. The results showed 2.0 moles of methanol as compared with a theoretical value of 2 moles.