The researcher João Carneiro from CIIMAR-UP colaborates with  Filipe Pereira CEO of IDENTIFICA of UPTEC brings together an evaluation platform of the main tools for molecular detection of SARS-CoV-2 validated by the world health organization (WHO). The database and scientific publication are now available online.

 

The platform generates more efficient molecular biology tools to identify the SARS-CoV-2 virus allowing laboratories working on the diagnosis of the virus to design more rigorous methods, with fewer false negatives and positives. The idea is to evaluate the laboratory methods that work best and that result in the least number of errors.

The identification of these molecular biology tools was possible by the analysis of about 1000 different genomes of the virus. The platform also makes it possible to identify possible mutations in the virus that may affect the binding efficiency of primers and probes and to detect potential false positives resulting from their binding to the genome of human coronaviruses other than SARS-CoV-2.

 

You can find the platform and the scientific paper here.