Molecular biologists offer “wartime service” in the effort to test for COVID-19

Abstract

As the novel coronavirus spreads, communities across the United States are struggling to offer public testing. The need is urgent. Testing got off to a delayed start in the United States as a result of technical missteps and a slow response from government officials. Now cities across the country are playing catch-up (1). Molecular biologists have the skills to run COVID-19 tests, but not the legal approvals. Some states are now relaxing restrictions to enable more researchers to run tests. Image credit: University of California, Berkeley/Max & Jules Photography. Many researchers with the appropriate skills are eager to help. And in principle, they’re well placed to do so. The relatively simple assay to diagnose the novel coronavirus entails RNA extraction and the polymerase chain reaction, or PCR. The two methods are so straightforward that many researchers are questioning why their labs can’t just pivot into guerilla testing centers. The limitations have more to do with regulations than with scientific technique—handling samples that will ultimately deliver medical results to patients involves legal oversight that’s far more complex than the assay itself. Although most molecular biologists won’t be able to offer their assistance in short order, some states have made it easier for them to contribute. And in some cases, researchers can help out with essential tasks associated with the tests, even if they can’t actually perform the tests themselves. Researchers are offering equipment and reagents as well as lab skills. Here, a UC Berkeley professor loads a liquid handler, which should help increase COVID-19 testing throughput. Made available via an emergency loan, the device is headed to the University of California, San Francisco, where hospitalized patients are being tested. Image credit: Julia Schaletzky (University of California, Berkeley, CA). In order to legally perform diagnostic work on human samples in the …