SwabSeq platform offers a potential solution for massive COVID-19 testing
In an article appearing in Nature Biomedical Engineering, a team of scientists from the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and UCLA School of Engineering report real-world results on SwabSeq, a high-throughput testing platform that uses sequencing to test thousands of samples at a time to detect COVID-19. They were able to perform more than 80,000 tests in less than two months, with the test showing extremely high sensitivity and specificity.
SwabSeq uses sample-specific molecular barcodes to simultaneously analyze thousands of samples for the presence or absence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. SwabSeq was granted FDA Emergency Use Authorization in October and is currently deployed at UCLA in a high-complexity CLIA laboratory, which has performed over 150,000 tests since December 2020. SwabSeq is a flexible protocol and can rapidly scale up testing for novel pathogens, including COVID-19 and
UCLA
March 4, 2021
Seventeen researchers at UCLA have been named recipients of awards from the 2020 UCLA Innovation Fund Biomedical Competition.
These awards, up to $200,000 per project, support early stage research that lead to commercialization activities, which usually aren’t supported by basic research grants. As a result, researchers can develop their technologies to a point where the chances of success are greatly increased. Importantly, all awarded projects receive consultations from an outside industry and investor adviser panel, which provides technical and commercial feedback that is key to technology development.
The UCLA Innovation Fund was established by the UCLA Technology Development Group, in conjunction with the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, UCLA College’s divisions of physical sciences and life sciences, the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, the School of Dentistry and UCLA Health.