Patent Document ID: 9399794
Application ID: 13865316
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method of detecting a presence or absence of a target nucleic acid in a test sample comprising: (a) inputting, into a learning statistical classifier system, data from a training set of samples, where an amount of the target nucleic acid and a control nucleic acid is known, wherein the learning statistical classifier system includes one or more processors; (b) using the learning statistical classifier system, calculating a plurality of weights for a general linear classifier, wherein the general linear classifier for a sample x is defined as 
 F ( x )= w[ 0 ]+w[ 1 ]×x[ 1 ]+w[ 2 ]×b ( x[ 2]); wherein x[1] is a cycle-to-threshold (Ct) value for the target nucleic acid in sample x; wherein x[2] is a Ct value for the control nucleic acid in sample x; wherein the plurality of weights includes w[0], w[1] and w[2], w[1] and w[2] being independent of each other; and wherein b(x[2]) is a function of the Ct value x[2] for the control nucleic acid; (c) building the general linear classifier with the plurality of weights calculated by the learning statistical classifier system in step (b); (d) contacting the test sample with a reaction mixture containing reagents necessary to amplify the target and the control nucleic acids by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) under conditions enabling PCR; (e) measuring Ct values for the target and the control nucleic acids in the test sample to obtain a test set of data; (f) applying the general linear classifier built in step (c) to the test set of data obtained in step (e) to: determine a value for F(x) for the test sample based on the measured Ct value of the target nucleic acid and the measured Ct value of the control nucleic acid; and use the value for F(x) to classify the test sample as containing or not containing the target nucleic acid, thereby detecting the presence or absence of the target nucleic acid in the test sample.