37 SPECIAL SECTION: SMART HEALTH
DEMOCRATIZING VIRUS TESTING PCR kit produced at KAUST with local content is on the cusp of commercialization
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Samir Hamdan, Associate Professor of Bioscience at KAUST, and his colleagues in the Rapid Research Response Team knew that diagnostic bottlenecks would be one of the most significant obstacles in fighting the virus. Even though there were already many commercially available reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests on the market, their high cost and scarcity due to airport closures and shipment restrictions left public health initiatives in many countries vulnerable. To address this problem, Professor Hamdan and his team decided to produce the key components of RT-PCR testing kits locally. A year later, their in-house kit is being deployed in the field to scale up the Kingdom’s testing capabilities.
