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Test, Test, Test
Test, Test, Test
Irish Scientists Team Up To Address COVID-19 Testing Shortage
A team of Irish scientists, including Prof Paul Cotter, Dr John MacSharry and Paula O’Connor from APC Microbiome Ireland, have joined forces to formulate lysis buffer needed to test for COVID-19. The initiative was spearheaded by Dr Martina Scallan, School of Microbiology, University College Cork and Dr Brigid Lucey, CIT, President of the ACSLM.
As billions of people are forced into lockdown with the global spread of the COVID-19 virus, the WHO mantra has been to “Test, Test, Test” for COVID-19.
The best way to detect and diagnose COVID-19 infection is using a test called RT-PCR. This test looks for the unique RNA nucleic acid, signature of the virus.
However this increased need for testing has resulted in a worldwide shortage of chemical reagents, in particular those associated with the “lysis buffer” required to isolate the viral RNA. This shortage has limited the ability of testing labs all around the world to carry out sufficient testing.
To address this shortage a team of hospital, university & biopharma scientists from University College Cork, Cork University Hospital, Cork Institute of Technology, Teagasc, APC Microbiome Ireland SFI Research Centre, University of Limerick and Eli Lilly Kinsale have come together to formulate a lysis buffer which will allow the country’s laboratories to continue to “Test, Test, Test” for COVID-19.
The team formulated and validated a lysis buffer in the space of a week which can be used in the hospital testing Labs. Working remotely the scientists reached out to each other and devised varying formulations to test on the hospital RT-PCR system.
The researchers in the School of Microbiology and APC Microbiome Ireland in UCC, Teagasc and UL quickly made up the formulations and medical scientists in Microbiology at CUH evaluated each of them for efficacy using known positive and negative virus samples. This then allowed the team in Eli Lilly to provide assistance to produce the most suitable formulation which can now be distributed to Hospital testing labs throughout the country.
Hopefully these efforts can help protect all the frontline medical, scientific and support staff in this battle to fight COVID-19.
The scientists are keen to share the detail with as many others as possible. Full details of the protocol have been made available by Dr John Mac Sharry at this link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XdTh6iAtpC39nipQ6URkN75Rh11VGJHPc4gSgMukrtU/edit?usp=sharing
