Karius, a California-based infectious disease detection company, recently closed on a $165 million Series B round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. Karius develops liquid biopsy tests for infectious diseases and can identify the microbial cell-free DNA of over 1,400 relevant pathogens based on a single blood sample. Karius recently published clinical data from a study at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in which their tests predicted bloodstream infection as early as three days before symptoms appeared.

Karius currently has one issued patent in the AI Biotech sector, which teaches a method for determining the relative abundance of non-host species in a sample, and the addition of synthetic nucleic acids and performing assays to identify these species as pathogens. 

I know what you’re thinking, can this blood test detect COVID-19? Unfortunately not, as it cannot detect RNA viruses…..yet.