Rutgers Develops Rapid Test For COVID Variants, Declines Patent

NEWARK, NJ — Researchers at Rutgers University have designed a rapid test that can detect three variants of the virus that causes COVID-19, and they have no plans to patent it, officials announced Monday.

The test can detect the “rapidly spreading” variants that originated in the United Kingdom (B.1.1.7), South Africa (B1.351) and Brazil (P.1). Health experts say the new variants can spread more easily from person to person, may cause more severe disease in people, and may be more resistant to currently approved vaccines.

• See related article: Should I Be Worried About These New Variants? Can We Stop Them?

According to Rutgers, their new test works in about an hour, much shorter than the three to five days required by current tests, which can also be more technically difficult and expensive to perform.

Rutgers researchers designed and clinically validated the test, which they say is the first to use “sloppy molecular beacon probes,” highly sensitive and specific DNA sequences used to detect frequent mutations in organisms.

Details and information on creating and running the rapid test – which is not being patented by Rutgers because researchers believe it should be “widely available to the public” – are published on the pre-print online server, MedRxiv, and available at no charge.

The new rapid test can be adapted for labs that use varying types of equipment and methods. Rutgers researchers said people are free to use the test as described or to “modify it as needed,” although they strongly suggested that additional validation be done for any test modifications.

Rutgers researchers said they’re also working to expand the test to more precisely differentiate among the three variants.

“This rapid test was developed and tested over a few weeks in a crash program to respond to a serious public health need,” said David Alland, director of the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School Public Health Research Institute and professor and chief of infectious disease at Rutgers NJMS.

“Despite our hurry to get the test completed, it performed extremely well with clinical samples in our initial studies,” said Alland, who developed the test with co-researchers Padmapriya Banada, Soumitesh Chakravorty, Raquel Green and Sukalyani Banik.

“We are very pleased with these results, and we hope that this test will help in the control of the rapidly evolving COVID-19 pandemic,” Alland said.

• See related article: Rutgers Expert: What Do the New Coronavirus Variants Mean?
• See related article: Fauci Taking NYC Coronavirus Variant 'Very, Very Seriously'
• See related article: Gov. Murphy Says COVID Variant Slowing NJ's Reopening

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