IIT-D develops a low-cost kit to detect Covid-19 | India News

MUMBAI: The Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IIT-D) has developed a low-cost Covid-19 detection kit that costs just a few hundred rupees using locally developed technology. The kit was approved by the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR), the top biomedical research body to be at the center of the fight to contain the Covid-19 outbreak, on Thursday.
The institute is now in the process of identifying an industry partner and its goal is to launch production this week. The assay or procedure has been validated in ICMR with a sensitivity and specificity of 100%. This makes IIT-D the first academic institute to obtain ICMR approval for a real-time PCR (polymerase chain reaction) -based diagnostic assay.
The IIT Delhi team of 10 people, including four faculty members, identified unique regions (short stretches of RNA sequences) in the Covid-19 / SARS COV-2 genome. These regions are not present in other human coronaviruses, providing an opportunity to specifically detect Covid-19.
“This method uses primers that target unique regions of Covid-19 that were designed and tested using real-time PCR. This highly sensitive assay was developed through extensive optimization using synthetic DNA constructs followed by in vitro generated RNA fragments, “said Professor Vivekanandan Perumal, principal investigator at the Kusuma School of Biological Sciences.
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The team began work on the screening test kit in late January. “From the beginning, we kept all of our labs accessible for the IIT Delhi community to carry out all kinds of research for Covid-19. About 20 projects in this area are on our campus, ”said IIT-D director Ramagopal Rao. Regarding the technology used for the detection kit, he said, “We know that testing will cost a few hundred rupees and that may also decrease if production volumes are higher. IIT Delhi has internally funded this research and we have applied for a patent. ”
This is the first ICMR approved Covid-19 probe-free trial. Screening analysis eliminates the use of fluorescent probes that reduced the cost of assembling the kit. “Instead, we use a fluorescent dye in conjunction with highly specific primers to detect Covid-19,” said Professor Manoj Menon.