A team of scientists from Waterford Institute of Technology’s (WIT) Pharmaceutical and Molecular Biotechnology Research Centre (PMBRC) and Eco-Innovation Research Centre (EIRC) have teamed up with University Hospital Waterford (UHW) and WIT-spin out company BioEnz Technologies Ltd to improve the speed of Covid-19 testing. The team will be led by Dr Lee Coffey, a lead scientist in the PMBRC and founder of BioEnz Technologies. Dr Coffey said the aim is to bring down the test time, which can take over two hours using the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction method, to under 30 minutes.
“We also plan to validate the method on a wider range of equipment, thereby increasing the number of labs capable of testing for Covid-19,” he said. Funding of €118,000 will be made available for the project.
Pictured L-R are: Mr Patrick Mulhare, Laboratory Manager, Pathology Department, UHW; Dr Denise O’Meara, Molecular Biologist and Lecturer, Department of Science, WIT; and Dr Coffey
