Virus assay

An assay is an investigative process in laboratory medicine, pharmacology, environmental biology and molecular biology for qualitatively assessing or quantitatively measuring the presence or amount or the functional activity of a goal entity that can be a drug or biochemical substance or a cell in an organism or organic sample.

The measured entity is commonly called the analyte, or the measurand or the goal of the assay. The assay commonly aims to measure an intensive property of the analyte and express it in the relevant measurement unit for instance molarity, density, functional activity in enzyme international units, degree of some effect in comparison to a standard, many more.