When patients develop a sore throat and congestion, their physician typically will attempt to determine if a cold virus or bacterial infection is the culprit. Oftentimes, just to be safe, the physician will write a potentially unnecessary prescription for an antibiotic in hopes of eradicating the infection.
Patrick Chain, genomics researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory, posed:
But what if a nurse could swipe the patient’s saliva and run a quick genetic test for bacteria?
