Dr. Rodney Ho, Executive Director of WE-REACH, discussed the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine and the challenges of distributing a treatment that requires -80 degree Celsius freezer storage with KOMO News last Friday. While “it is logistically challenging,” Dr. Ho believes that “we have prepared the best as we can.”
For the full story, follow the to KOMO News 4.
Seattle, WA (November 13, 2020)鈥擳he Washington Entrepreneurial Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hub (WE-REACH) is pleased to announce two awards to develop rapid point-of-care diagnostic tests for COVID-19. By securing about $500k in additional funding from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), WE-REACH is investing in the development of rapid, portable COVID-19 testing to enable contact tracing and curtail the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
The first award is with Jae-Hyun Chung, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the 91爆料. His team is developing a portable and sensitive viral antigen detector using an innovative nanotube sensor-based technology. The test will be portable for point-of-care diagnostics and should provide results within minutes.
The second award is with Barry Lutz, Associate Professor of Bioengineering at the 91爆料. His team is developing a novel point-of-care device called 鈥淎scensio鈩�.鈥� It will be a low-cost, moderate-throughput viral genetic sequence test for COVID-19. If successful, it can serve as a platform to detect SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses (such as the flu) within minutes.
Unlike current COVID-19 tests that have to be sent to central laboratories and take days to get results, these two innovative point-of-care tests should be able to provide prompt readouts onsite in local communities, field clinics, and businesses.
鈥淲e are honored that our Center can play a role in helping solve the COVID-19 pandemic,鈥� said Dr. Rodney Ho, the executive director of WE-REACH. By bringing innovative, sensitive, and specific diagnostic tests to the market, we can help overcome a disease that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and disrupted schools and businesses.鈥�
Beyond funding, WE-REACH provides value-added product development, regulatory strategy, market analysis, and follow-on grant development to help ensure the success of life-changing technologies. Both projects have been reviewed and supported by experts at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
WE-REACH is part of an NIH supported network of public-private partnerships accelerating the translation of biomedical discoveries into commercially viable products to improve patient care and enhance health.
###
For more information, visit us at /we-reach/ or contact us at wereach@uw.edu.
WE-REACH is supported by NIH Grant 1 U01 HL152401.