Scientists from UCLA assert that the currently available COVID-19 test presents a viable solution for widespread testing among the population.
UCLA-Led Coalition Develops Highly Sensitive and Cost-Effective COVID-19 Testing Technology
UCLA scientists are spearheading a collaborative effort involving academic and industrial labs to scale up COVID-19 testing, thanks to a groundbreaking technology developed through a partnership between UCLA departments and Octant, a start-up company.
The technology, known as SwabSeq, has shown extremely high sensitivity and specificity, making it a promising solution for massively scaled-up testing for SARS-CoV-2 RNA via next-generation sequencing of pooled and barcoded nasal and saliva samples.
The study, authored by J.S. Bloom, L. Sathe, C. Munugala, and others, was published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering (DOI: 10.1038/s41551-021-00754-5).
SwabSeq uses sample-specific molecular barcodes to analyse samples for the presence or absence of SARS-CoV-2. The technology was initially developed by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and has since been adapted by UCLA scientists to create a testing platform that can process thousands of samples at a time.
The SwabSeq testing platform was granted FDA Emergency Use Authorization in October 2020 and is currently deployed in a high-complexity CLIA laboratory at UCLA. As of now, over 150,000 samples have been tested using SwabSeq at UCLA.
The authors of the study emphasise that SwabSeq prioritises scale and low cost, key factors missing from current COVID-19 diagnostics. SwabSeq is a modification of Octant's technology that is being applied towards drug discovery and has been made available broadly to fight the pandemic.
The study focuses on massively scaled-up testing for SARS-CoV-2 RNA via next-generation sequencing of pooled and barcoded nasal and saliva samples. The SwabSeq test has been shown to be extremely accurate, with high sensitivity and specificity, making it a valuable tool in the ongoing fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
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