Researchers at the Hebrew University say they have developed a new method for diagnosing corona at a cheaper and faster rate than most commonly used today. According to them, most of the test materials are in Israel in any laboratory, regardless of international commercial companies.
The shortage of corona virus test materials slows down the testing rate for samples already collected from potential patients and reduces the number of samples that can be performed. The materials needed for testing currently underway come as ready kits from commercial companies overseas that fail to keep up with global demand and volumes.
A group of laboratories at the Hebrew University from various fields were incorporated in an attempt to find the solution, led by the researchers Dr. Naomi Habib and Prof. Nir Friedman, together with Prof. Yuval Dor from the Faculty of Medicine and Prof. Dana Wolf from Hadassah Medical Center.
The method used today for the corona diagnostic test is to extract RNA molecules from a prospective patient’s sample and to determine if the molecules produced have viral RNA that confirms the presence of the corona virus. The aim of the researchers was to develop a new and more efficient method of diagnosis, based on different materials from the imported kits, most of which are available in Israel and significantly cheaper.
The newly developed test does the same operation, only from materials that have no deficiency and at a much higher speed. “We have an efficient RNA extraction protocol, 4 to 10 times faster than the current protocol,” says Dr. Habib. “The protocol has already undergone a series of tests at Hadassah Hospital on hundreds of samples of patients – and is now becoming operational.”
Dr. Naomi kindly. Photographer: Moshe Volkowitz
Prof. Nir Friedman. No credit
Another benefit of the new test is that most of the test materials are already available and can be manufactured in Israel today, and at a significantly lower cost than currently imported kits. The next step in the researchers’ research is to develop a method that will allow tens of thousands of samples to be tested simultaneously and not just thousands of tests as is done today. This method will be based on genomic flooring tools.
According to Prof. Friedman, “Our method allows for independence and significantly reduces the dependence on external factors for conducting the tests. We have already run the method on hundreds of Hadassah samples, and all the tests came out identical to the results obtained in the current test.” He adds: “We are in the midst of a development that will allow testing of 15,000 people at the same time. We already have very positive indications that encourage us that it can work.”
