New Delhi: Reliance Life Sciences has developed an RT-PCR kit that promises the diagnosis of COVID-19 infection in about 2 hours, company sources said.
Currently, the COVID-19 RT-PCR test, which is a real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) test for the qualitative detection of SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid, takes up to 24 hours to give a diagnosis.
Sources said computational biologists at Reliance Life Sciences, a subsidiary of billionaire Reliance Industries Ltd, led by Mukesh Ambani, analyzed more than 100 SARS-CoV-2 genomes sequenced in India and designed unique RT-PCR primers to develop PCR. quantitative in real time. (RT-PCR) for the detection of COVID-19.
The RT-PCR kit is considered the gold standard so far.
The kit, developed by scientists at Reliance Life Sciences, is called the R-Green Kit (SARS COV2-Real-time PCR) and has been technically validated by ICMR for satisfactory performance, the sources said.
The ICMR validation process does not approve / disapprove of kit design and does not certify ease of use.
Sources said the kit can detect the presence of SARS COV2 virus E gene, R gene, RdRp gene with Actin as internal control.
Based on the ICMR results, the kit shows a sensitivity of 98.7% and a specificity of 98.8%.
This kit is a complete indigenous development by the R&D scientists working at the company, they said, adding one of the biggest advantages of this kit is that it is easy to use and uses readily available simple reagents and primers that can be synthesized in India.
Diagnostic time is about 2 hours, they added.
A separate study by Reliance Life Sciences has indicated that the death rate from the COVID-19 pandemic may be significantly reduced by the end of 2020.
The study showed the occurrence of structural and non-structural protein mutations of SARS-CoV-2 that form more than 7,000 sequences of the SARS-CoV-2 virus genome from 49 countries.
Statistical analysis showed an inverse correlation between the mutation rates of two NSP6 proteins and the surface glycoprotein (S) with the death rate, according to the study published in the Scientific Journal of Biology.
Mutations in these two proteins have been predicted to grow steadily, while the death rate would drop below 0.5% by the end of 2020 in Group I countries (India and Bangladesh).
In the study, the mutation rate of the NSP6 and S proteins of the group II country (USA) is lower than that of the group I and group III countries (Australia and New Zealand).
Therefore, it has been proposed that in group II country, the death rate from the COVID-19 pandemic will weaken later than in group I and III countries, according to the study.
Reliance also obtained a US patent for genetically modified microalgae that are said to defend / delay death.
The United States Patent issued the patent on September 8.
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