Berkley Lab Will Carry Out R&D To Assist In The COVID-19 Response

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has recently received funding from the US Department of Energy (DOE) to carry out R&D that will help to improve testing capabilities for COVID-19. 

The project will be carried out over the next six months in eight DOE national labs and will seek to improve current COVID-19 diagnostic methods and help develop new capabilities for the future, such as scaling up testing if required.  

Five teams have been created to manage different aspects of the research. Berkeley Lab scientists will participate in four of the teams, which will:

• Validate diagnostic alternatives;
• Evaluate the performance of a prototype digital microfluidic platform to miniaturize the assay used to detect COVID-19;
• Develop computational approaches to optimise diagnostic tests and detection methods;
• Explore structure-based protein design for diagnostics.

This project is one of many that has been initiated to provide rapid assistance in the US COVID-19 response.