Center for Molecular Medicine Cologne

Research for rapid SARS-CoV-2 testing based on a novel mulitplex LAMP assay

27/08/2020

The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is supporting a research project at the Cologne University Hospital and the Medical Faculty with over 400,000 Euros led by Prof. Dr. Bernhard Schermer between the Dept. II of Internal Medicine and the Institute for Virology in affiliation with the CMMC at the University Hospital Cologne

 

Covid-19 / iStock-1206405721

The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is supporting a research project at the University Hospital of Cologne and the Medical Faculty of the Univ. of Cologne with over 400.000 €. The  aim to establish a novel method for detecting SARS-CoV-2 in smears. The funding is being provided as part of the call for funding for Covid-19 research referring to the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in March 2020.

Rapid and extensive testing of large parts of the population and specific subgroups is crucial for proper management of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections and decision-making in times of a pandemic outbreak.

The research team consists of the CMMC / CECAD Members Prof. Dr. Bernhard Schermer and Univ.-Prof. Dr. Roman-Ulrich Müller, both also Clinic II for Internal Medicine, Priv.-Doz. Dr. Volker Burst from Clinic II for Internal Medicine and Univ.-Prof. Dr. Florian Klein, Director of the Institute for Virology.

"Our goal is to develop a fast, inexpensive and, above all, practical corona test procedure, which can be used on site without complex laboratory equipment, but which can keep pace with the current gold standard in terms of sensitivity and specificity", says project manager Prof. Schermer. The test result should be visible either by means of a band on a test strip or by a color change. Prof. Schermer estimates the time for a test to be 30 to 60 minutes.

In the currently common corona test, ribonucleic acids (RNA) are first purified from smears. These contain the genetic information of the coronavirus, which in turn can be multiplied and detected with a real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). The qPCR is rightly regarded as the gold standard, but it requires complex analysis equipment and thus usually the transport of the sample to a special laboratory. It takes a few hours until the result is available.
 
“In Germany we have sufficient capacity for established diagnostics. The current discussions about regular tests in many different areas of public life show, that fast alternative test procedures can be of great importance in the future, ”explains the virologist Prof. Klein.

The great interest in the work is proven by more than 500 downloads of the preprint on the medRxiv science platform.

The project funding is set to run for 18 months and is part of the call for funding for research into COVID-19 in the course of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak on March 3, 2020.

The great interest in the work is proven by more than 500 downloads of the preprint on the medRxiv science platform.

The project funding is set to run for 18 months and is part of the call for funding for research into COVID-19 in the course of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak on March 3, 2020.

The first results of this work have now been made available as preprint in medRxiv(Reprint Server for Health Sciences) with the following title:
Rapid SARS-CoV-2 testing in primary material based on a novel multiplex LAMP assay
Bernhard Schermer, Francesca Fabretti, Maximilian Damagnez, Veronica Di Cristanziano, Eva Heger, Sita Arjune, Nathan A Tanner, Thomas Imhof, Manuel Koch, Alim Ladha, Julia Joung, Jonathan S. Gootenberg, Omar O. Abudayyeh, Volker Burst, Feng Zhang, Florian Klein, Thomas Benzing, Roman-Ulrich Mueller
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.18.20130377v1

Find more information about the project on the website of the BMBF

Contact:
Prof. Dr. Bernhard Schermer
Dept. for Internal Medicine
Nephrolab Cologne

E-Mail: bernhard.schermer[at]uk-koeln.de
Web: http://www.kidneyresearchcenter.org
http://nephrologie.uk-koeln.de

CMMC Principal Investigator:
https://www.cmmc-uni-koeln.de/research/research-areas-projects/research-area-c/bernhard-schermer-max-c-liebau-c-14

Modified press release from University Hospital Cologne

Original press release: https://www.uk-koeln.de/de/uniklinik-koeln/presse-mediathek/presse/details/forschungsteam-arbeitet-an-corona-schnelltest/