Rutgers professor describes his saliva test for coronavirus: 'You simply have to spit into a tube'

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FDA approves 'faster and safer' saliva test for COVID-19

Andrew Brooks helped develop the saliva test and explains how it works.

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Rutgers University research professor Andrew Brooks joined "Bill Hemmer Reports" Tuesday to discuss a saliva test he helped develop to determine if someone has the coronavirus.

"You simply have to spit into a tube," Brooks, the COO and director of technology development at RUCDR Infinite Biologics, told Hemmer. "With some spit in a tube you cap that tube and a preservation agent preserves the nucleic acid from the virus, allowing us to safely transport it to the lab. And off you go to testing.

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"It doesn't require a health care professional to collect ... and [it] also preserves all that personal protective equipment that we need to take care of patients in the hospital," Brooks added.

Brooks said his test would allow the collection of more samples from potential cases, particularly at drive-thru sites.

"You could have 10 cars going through every two or three minutes to collect," Brooks told Hemmer. "So what this does is it makes the collection more simple, more safe, to increase the capacity for testing in the laboratory."

Over the weekend, the saliva test received emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

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"I think they've always been looking for better ways to get people tested," Brooks said. "And we presented data from the 30 years of experience and working with all different kinds of biomaterials that demonstrated viral shedding into saliva can provide plenty of material to be able to do this analysis.

"And they welcomed the review of that data because of the safety, because of the stability and the impact that it can have in making testing or the collection for testing safer and more globally available."