INTEC and Reference Clinical Laboratory join efforts to expand the country's capacity to carry out PCR tests COVID-19

SANTO DOMINGO. Through a collaboration agreement, el Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC) granted, on loan, one of its QuantStudio 3 equipment to the Clinical Laboratory Reference, to help you expand your capacity to perform PCR tests for COVID-19 and deliver results to patients with greater agility. The agreement was made as a result of a request from the laboratory to the university.

Reference Clinical Laboratory is one of the private laboratories authorized by public health authorities to perform the SARS-CoV-2 test. It is the only clinical laboratory in the country with CAP Accreditation granted by the American College of Pathologists; and the first in the country and in the entire Caribbean area to receive the international certification of the quality management standard ISO 9001, ISO 15189, IQNET, for the quality of its processes.  

"In view of the new stage of opening to companies, we would like to be able to increase our testing capacity," says Patricia León, executive director of the Clinical Laboratory Reference in a letter. In the document addressed to the rector of INTEC, he specifies that the laboratory awaits the arrival of its own QuantStudio equipment, acquired outside the country and that would be available in June.

INTEC acquired the apparatus for the development of the research project "Ecology, Taxonomy and Genomics of Rusts (Pucciniales, Basidiomycota) of the Dominican Republic", which was carried out as part of the call for the National Fund for Scientific and Technological Innovation and Development ( FONDOCYT) from 2014. Currently, the equipment is used in the Genetics Laboratory, where it allows modeling from DNA profiles, measurement of genetic variations, detection of the presence of pathogens, among others.

The Polymerase Chain Reaction test (PCR) allows to detect a fragment of the genetic material of a pathogen. In the Coronavirus pandemic it is used to determine whether a person is infected or not, with high specificity and high sensitivity, allowing the virus to be identified even in its early stages. The equipment assigned to Reference allows to analyze a multiplicity of samples simultaneously.

The terms of the agreement signed by INTEC and the Clinical Laboratory Reference were welcomed by the Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology, Alejandrina Germán, who described it as an excellent example of academic collaboration, business and government for the benefit of society, and in the context of a crisis situation.

This collaboration is part of INTEC's efforts to contribute, from different orders, to controlling the effects of the pandemic in the country. In that order, the Rector of the university expressed his satisfaction of finding, through the request, a new form of collaboration between the academy and society, “we hope that this contribution will serve the purpose of your company to contribute to the identification of COVID-19 cases, and working on time to restore the health of those infected. ”