Singapore researchers develop new COVID-19 test method

The method will speed up the testing procedure by up to four times.

Clinician-scientists at Nanyang Technological University Singapore’s (NTU Singapore) Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine) have developed a new testing method that is expected to yield results in as low as 36 minutes. The research team unveiled the new method in a media release on Monday (27 July).

The researchers said the biggest bottleneck in the current gold-standard testing method was RNA purification, which requires chemicals that are now in short short supply worldwide. Furthermore, the tests need highly trained technical staff in specialised laboratory facilities to be performed.

To simplify the procedure, the new method combines many of these steps, and allows direct testing on the crude patient sample, cutting down the turnaround time from sample-to-result and removing the need for RNA purification chemicals.

As the test can be done on portable equipment, researchers believe that it could be deployed in the community as a screening tool.

The team is now looking to use this method for COVID-19 testing at the NTU Clinical Diagnostic Laboratory at LKCMedicine.

Associate professor Eric Yap, leader of the research team said, “We previously demonstrated that this method works for dengue virus as well. When used directly on a crude blood sample with dengue virus, the test yielded results in 28 minutes. As Singapore battles the dual outbreak of dengue and COVID-19, both with similar early symptoms, our test could help in differentiating between the two infectious diseases.”