09.10.2020 change 09.10.2020

Scientists develop new, faster Coronavirus test

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A new version of the SARS-CoV-2 test, which is twice as fast as the previous generation, has been developed by scientists at the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Poznań.

Dr. Luiza Handschuh, head of the Genomics Laboratory at the Institute told PAP that the new version of the test was marketed. She said: “This is actually a modification of the third generation test that has been on the market for a while, but this modification halves the response time.

“We had three generations of tests. The first detected only one virus gene, the second - two genes, but in two separate reactions. In the third generation, everything happened in one reaction. We have maintained this, there is still one reaction, but we halved the time. You could say it's an improved third generation.”

She added that although the virus detection phase was reduced from two to one hour, “everything else still has to be done. You will not get a result in an hour. There are no such coronavirus tests yet. This reduction in time is convenient for laboratories: the test takes an hour of the machine time, not two.

“We keep the same test sensitivity as before. This is not a time reduction at the expense of something else. The test is just as good, only faster.”

The new test, which has been received positively by the National Institute of Public Health - National Institute of Hygiene and the CE IVD certificate, is being manufactured by the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry in cooperation with Medicofarma.

In March, scientists from the Poznań institute announced that they had developed their own prototype coronavirus test based on reagents sourced exclusively from Polish manufacturers. The test began to be manufactured in late April. At the end of May, the institute announced that the next generation of the test had been developed.

PAP - Science in Poland, Szymon Kiepel

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