O Unicamp Medicinal Chemistry Center (CQMED), developed a protocol for the production of high-specificity enzymes to be used in testing Covid-19 in saliva samples. The first delivery generated inputs for 400 tests and was delivered to partner company Mendelics Análise Genômica last December. Production was carried out in less than two months and the expectation is that enzymes will be produced for another 200 tests by the end of January. Next, CQMED will train technical staff in the country to continue production.
“During the development of the enzymes, our team simultaneously shortened the production process and increased the purity of the enzymes. Since the pilot batch of enzymes produced, we have already verified that the quality is equivalent to imported ones”, says Katlin Massirer, researcher at CQMED and project coordinator at Unicamp. The enzymes were validated for equivalence with those imported by the Mendelics clinical laboratory, using saliva samples that arrive daily from all over Brazil to the laboratory in the Santana neighborhood in São Paulo.
The Mendelics laboratory is currently carrying out 90 tests per month and the scalability of reagents is an important step towards the country's autonomy. Our development contributes to expanding mass testing capacity, still considered one of the bottlenecks for defining public policies to combat the SARS-COV 2 pandemic.
The saliva test for Covid-19, called RT-LAMP, has the same quality as the PCR, and is making testing possible in places with fewer resources in the country. “RT-LAMP is faster and cheaper, as it is based on the use of highly specific enzymes and eliminates the use of expensive equipment”, explains Dr Mario Bengtson, professor at the Unicamp Biology Institute and main researcher on the project. . The RT-LAMP test procedure performed by Mendelics was recently published openly on the Medrxiv platform.
The project is the result of a partnership between the Unicamp Center and the company Mendelics Análise Genômica and the Brazilian Industrial Research and Innovation Company - EMBRAPII.
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Medicinal Chemistry Center will produce enzymes for saliva testing for Covid-19
