COVID-19 crisis: Mumbai team develops algorithm that tests more patients with fewer trials, awaits approval Tapestry Pooling, the initiative developed by the team from Mumbai, is today a finalist in the Open Innovation Track of the $500,000 XPRIZE, a worldwide COVID-19 testing competition Apekshita Varshney / CitizenMatters.in January 11, 2021 20:04:29 IST
About five years ago, Manoj Gopalkrishnan, a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, heard about the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus or MERS-COV outbreak.
He read news stories discussing the shortage of testing kits and wondered if pooling as a form of testing, where samples are mixed together in a batch and only tested further if the combined sample tests positive, could be used to accelerate testing.