Sparse Group Quantitative PCR Testing by Belief Propagation

In a standard group test setup, the result of each pooled test is either positive or negative. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a method of making billions of copies of DNA from a small amount of DNA sample. Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically impacted public health worldwide. Massive population PCR testing allows the isolation of infected individuals and the pandemic control. Quantitative PCR (q-PCR) test provides more information about infected samples than the standard group test. In this paper, we model the q-PCR and demonstrate group q-PCR testing with sparse test matrices and by belief propagation.