CAPE TOWN - The Biopharming Research Unit at the University of Cape Town, led by Professor Ed Rybicki, has secured funding to produce diagnostic reagents for Covid-19 testing.
According to the university, the National Department of Science and Innovation (DSI), the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) and the Technology Innovation Agency have awarded funds to seven local organisations, companies and researchers to ramp up the country’s opportunity to locally develop reagents and testing kits for Covid-19.
Reagents are chemical substances used in laboratories to test patient samples and determine test results.
The BRU, a unit of UCT's Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, was one of three applicants to receive funding, while four other funding awards are going towards supporting the development of point-of-care rapid diagnostic kits.
Rybicki said producing reagents locally would ease the supply and allow for a faster roll-out of tests, which could be significantly cheaper than imports.
Local production would also reduce the turnaround time on diagnosing Covid-19 cases and allow for more effective contact tracing and quarantining.
“Reagents are vital as ingredients in test kits for detection of the virus and for detection of antibodies to it.
“Each of them has to be carefully developed so as not to cause any problems in testing, such as false positives/negatives or instability,” Rybicki said.
The university said in order to do this they will have to gain access to the genetic information of the virus (SARS-CoV-2), which is carried in its DNA and RNA.
The funding received will allow BRU to develop and produce stable synthetic DNA and RNA molecules used to target sequences for the detection of Covid-19, the university reported.
This is widely used to test for Covid-19 and involves taking nasopharyngeal swabs.
“We are developing a positive control RNA molecule to be used in nucleic acid detection kits to confirm that the specific test is working as it should,” explained Rybicki. “To that end, we need something that contains all the sequences that people are using for a variety of virus RNA detection kits.”
Technology already used in the BRU laboratory will involve enclosing synthetic RNA molecules made by plant cells into a plant virus coat protein.
Rybicki said the process will be enabled by using a proprietary plant virus-derived expression system that they developed to make the RNA molecule and the coat protein, which will allow them to bind, make particles of and protect the RNA.
He said should all intricate processes involved result in success and a DNA sequence synthesised, tests can be conducted to prove the technology works for protecting RNA sequences.
The aim is to have an experimental product in the next few weeks.
African News Agency