June 5, 2020 | Research news in COVID-19 diagnostics from China’s CDC and the University of Maryland. New tools and technologies are coming from BioDot, Longhorn, and more.
Literature Updates
Researchers from the Xi'an Center for Disease Control and Prevention in China propose that inactivating the SARS-CoV-19 virus—a step taken to protect lab personnel before testing—could be to blame for the rate of false negatives in testing. They tested various inactivation techniques on clinical samples from known COVID-19 patients and compared the impact on viral RNA copy number. They conclude that TRIzol, an inactivating reagent, has the least effect on RNA copy number among the tested methods. The research appears in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology. DOI: 10.1128/JCM.00958-20
Scientists from the University of Maryland School of Medicine have developed an experimental diagnostic test for COVID-19 that can visually detect the presence of the virus in 10 minutes. Once a nasal swab or saliva sample is obtained from a patient, the RNA is extracted from the sample via a simple process that takes about 10 minutes. The test uses a highly specific molecule attached to the gold nanoparticles to detect a particular protein unique to the novel coronavirus. When the biosensor binds to the virus's gene sequence, the gold nanoparticles respond by turning the liquid reagent from purple to blue. A company called VitruVian Bio has been created to develop the test for commercial application. The work was published last week in ACS Nano. DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.0c03822
Company Updates
BioDot has compressed production times for most new lateral flow dispensing platforms from months to four to six weeks to support increasing demand globally for COVID-19 testing. Each platform, or “work cell,” which dispenses highly precise volumes of specialized reagents for detecting COVID-19 antibodies, can enable production of one million point-of-care tests per week. Lateral flow tests for COVID-19 can detect virus antibodies in blood (IgG, IgM or both). BioDot’s automated dispensing platforms are used by diagnostics manufacturers to produce high-quality COVID-19 tests rapidly and at a scale, and these companies are responsible for regulatory approvals and distribution to the point of care. Press release
Longhorn Vaccines & Diagnostics, Cenetron Diagnostics, and Southeastern Container (SEC) are working to expand production of COVID-19 testing kits. SEC is a co-operative funded and managed by a group of independent Coca-Cola bottlers serving the United States and Canada. As part of the collaboration, Cenetron and other medical product manufacturers will begin producing COVID-19 testing kits using Longhorn’s proprietary PrimeStore Molecular Transport Medium (MTM) and preform Coca-Cola bottles, sourced from SEC, as test tubes. The goal is to manufacture 1-2 million preform test tubes per week to help meet the broader US testing goal of performing 10 million COVID-19 tests per week. Longhorn’s PrimeStore MTM is the only FDA cleared nucleic transport device that inactivates microbes within the device. Samples can be easily and quickly moved from the Coca-Cola preform to microcentrifuge tubes for rapid automation. Press release
Simon Fraser University researchers and Providence Health Care (PHC) are collaborating on a new artificial intelligence tool for diagnosing COVID-19. PHC leveraged SFU researchers' expertise to validate a deep learning tool to expedite the time healthcare professionals spend distinguishing between COVID-19 pneumonia and non-COVID-19 cases. The tool, currently in the validation phase at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, Canada, enables a clinician to feed a patient's chest x-ray image into a computer, run a bio-image detection analysis and determine a positive pneumonia case that is consistent with COVID-19. Press release