NEWPORT, Ky. — A Northern Kentucky lab is joining the battle to fight COVID-19.

What You Need To Know


  • Northern Kentucky lab creates antibody test.

  • The test detects coronavirus and level of immunity a person has

  • Has applied for FDA approval

Ethos Laboratories has created its own antibody test which is like a virus radar.

“That looks at neutralizing capabilities of one’s body in combating the COVID-19 infection,” said Brian Kincaid, CEO. 

The test is specifically made to detect the coronavirus and the level of immunity in a person’s body.

Kincaid explains the current antibody tests in the market, which have been present in the last two months or so, measure what’s called binding antibodies.

“A binding antibody simply tells you if you had previous exposure or potentially has previous exposure to COVID (-19) and it kind of stops there,” Kincaid said.

Unlike those tests, Kincaid and his team developed what they call the Tru-Immune lab test.

“The difference with a neutralizing antibody test is, it actually looks at the antibodies in your body and determines, how equipped is your body at preventing the COVID (-19) virus from attaching to your healthy cells, therefore, getting infected,” Kincaid said.

Kincaid said the results from the test can tell you your level of immunity to fight the virus. 

“It's very difficult to understand whether or not people have actually had COVID (-19) in some instances, there's a lot of reports of asymptomatic, you know disease, sickness. So you may have had COVID (-19), and not even realize it. So we'd like this to be available to everybody, to give everybody a sense over and understanding what is their protective immunity level, at this point in time,” Kincaid said.

Kincaid says often, the neutralizing tests are used during vaccine trials or identifying convalescent plasmas and add to that it can be a long and tedious process.

“This test is built and designed to be able to be run at a low cost. You know, in a high throughput clinical laboratory. therefore, allowing us to get this to more people in a shorter period of time,” Kincaid said.

The lab has applied to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for an Emergency Use Authorization to administer the test to more people once approved.