Chain Reaction

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hundreds of staff at the Francis Crick Institute volunteered to Work on the coronavirus

Dr. Charles Swanton 's days are busy, but The Work is rewarding test.

The Francis Crick Institute, where he works, was the examination of physicians in London, were sent home after showing symptoms of Covid-19.

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Those who are free of The Virus now back on their jobs.

the Overstretched hospitals have been desperate for more test facilities such as these will help the medical staff to get back to Work .

until The End of April, but has struggled to in the vicinity of this number.

A test to see whether someone is the coronavirus is a complicated process (different tests, to see if anyone has ever had The Virus are always still waiting for approval).

molecules on a swab, the use of chemicals, liquid handling robot, and a PCR (polymerase Chain Reaction ) machine are divided into genetic code, that make billions of copies of DNA strands.

Private, and University laboratories across the UK have donated enough equipment for the three major testing laboratories in Glasgow, Milton Keynes and Alderley Park in Cheshire.

But it is not with the machine enough, You also need to Work blended cocktails of chemicals.

the secret recipes have been tested over a longer period of time, verified by the regulatory authorities and guarded by the companies that sell them.

As a cook with a ready-to-bake-Cake mix, scientists know all the ingredients, but the exact proportions are specific to each company.

The companies, which produce and sell include Qiagen , Roche, Merck, and Eurofins Genomics. Each has developed their own recipes for certain models of PCR Machines .

Dr. Charles Swanton and his team created an implemented your own test kits

Dr. Swanton and his colleagues, from the Crick Institute, is that most of The World would be a rush for these kits. They also knew the company, You will be inundated would be made.

So, instead of waiting that You can test and reverse-Engineering their own "home-brew" to the local medical staff in London, as a volunteer service.

The Crick Institute will be led by the Nobel prize-winning scientist, Sir Paul Nurse , but not executed, of the health services.

It's a research lab, formed from a collaboration between Cancer Research UK, London hospitals, The Royal Marsden, Imperial College London, King's College London and University College London.

Three weeks ago, when The Virus crept in the whole of Europe, its laboratories were considered to be non-essential and closed. You pass a lot of their Machines to The Department of Health and Social Care, which is one of the leading Test and ramp-up, outside of the hospitals.

Dr. Swanton, who worked at The Time , such as Cancer Research UK's chief doctor, the exploration of The Way that cancer progresses.

"We went to be sent home. I thought to myself, 'Well, there are a lot of non-essential workers who I know who might be actually quite essential to the coronavirus effort," he Says .

He sent an E-Mail round. A Working Group was formed. At the same time, Mr nurse an E-Mail sent to his staff at the Crick Institute is asking for any volunteers for a laboratory.

He received 300 responses in 24 hours.

Doctors, including Dr. Swanton, many from the University College London and some in a private lab near in St Pancras called the HSL (Health Service laboratories), worked together to create a new process for the production of chemical kits, the equipment that the government had Left Behind .

Dr. Swanton now leads the Covid-19-Test of the Crick Institute.

"We have the staff, the facilities, the resources, the reagents and the know-how to get to and it's easy to do. And that is to do what we choose," Says Dr. Swanton.

your home-made was admitted to the chemical kit (RNA Extraction kit) by a rapid process of accreditation, and they have

How the chemicals Work

The Test for Covid-19 used two steps to extract the packaged chemical kits, the genetic material from the mucous membranes and cells found in the smear on a skin.

RNA-Extraction - Around £350 for a set of 50

In this part of The Test , the cleaned The Virus , the genetic code, the RNA, or ribonucleic acid, is found, and separated.

enzymes and other chemicals, the chopsticks break all the cells that are sent to the top of the watt.

enzymes called proteases break down proteins in the sample. (Similar chemicals are added to cut Laundry detergent and The Proteins in food stains. )

another group of chemicals-nitrogen of the RNA to a membrane.

And the reaction is carried out in a liquid, the so-called buffer.

At this point, the RNA is too small to be detected. This is when The Second chemical cocktail comes into play.

PCR kit - 250 pounds for a pack of 200

This chemical cocktail, the viral RNA code into the PCR machine to reproduce.

Here, the RNA is converted to a form of DNA, are covered made, fluorescent chemicals, and copies, until there are enough to recognize.

If enough bright spots appear, The Test indicates that The Virus was in the sample.

the company, better known for the production of these chemical kits to warn of Reverse Engineering under the current circumstances.

Dr. Thomas Theuringer, spokesperson for Qiagen , a German chemical company that supplies reagents to the UK, Says the exchange of these reagents cocktails with homemade recipes is "playing with fire".

"We can only guarantee that our extractions Work if we use them in our production, where we have a controlled environment. Mis-step, and You may get a false positive, and they create more harm than good," he Says .

Qiagen is one of the companies, the kits for virus testing

Several of the reagents produced, led by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the USA to convincing results. The CDC later admitted that the kits rushed was "".

"We Are Not Talking about baking a Cake - this is about life and death," Says Dr. Theuringer.

the advantage of using commercial solutions, he Says , is that Qiagen has been that for a long time, and that The Standard operating procedures have been confirmed in laboratories of several international organizations in the field of health.

Roche, a company that makes straight-reagent-kits for the UK Test sites, agreed.

"The primary obstacles that are in another company or the manufacturer of Roche-Tests and reagents, time and know-how. Roche cannot guarantee safety and reliability, if the reagents prepared for The Test were outside of our production network," a spokesman told The Bbc in an E-Mail.

Prof Kool was told by the US authorities that its Test kits were not The Right sort of

Stanford University Professor Eric Kool Says : "people have used home-bride for the RNA Extraction for a long time, but for the up-scaling Tests need to be done in an automated way, so that You can handle the many samples. "

Prof Kool teaches chemistry at Stanford, has its own RNA-Extraction kit business and offered to help the effort in the United States , but The Test centres, it told him, his sets were The Right ones for the machine they had.

"kind of, such as The Printer Ink You buy is The Right one for The Printer ," he Says .

"These kits are nits, all operating in secret," he Says , but adds that the automated kits are plugins that Work best with the kind of 24-hour Tests which must be done with Covid-19.

"Even if people are sleeping, can the robot the samples to run," he Says .

This is the core of The Problem in the large Test-pages, as the by the government.

The PCR machine, which has been collected from laboratories in the whole of the UK works best with the chemical kits that deliver in the shortest possible.

The Problem is worldwide, everyone is trying the same automated RNA-Extraction -kit.

To add to the complexity, the companies that sell them have different ideas on the the buyer should have priority.

This was a difficult perspective for Qiagen , said its representative, Dr. Theuringer, because his company had a version of what could be fairer distribution.

"no, no, No One company alone can help to meet the demand," he Says .

she walked out of the production 1. 5 million kits of the month to 20 million per month, reinforced and moved from a three-shift working Around The Clock .

Even so, they were not able to meet demand, and also the buyer insisted on their competitors.

Roche Says it remains committed to its partnership with the British government.

chemistry, genetics, coronavirus pandemic, dna

Source of news: bbc.com