Isang UPLB (University of the Philippines – Los Baños) alumna ang sentro ng papuri ngayon dahil sa pamumuno nito sa mass testing technology ng Switzerland sa COVID-19.
Batay sa website article ng unibersidad, itinuturing na “breakthrough” laban sa pandemic ang development na pinangungunahan ni Catharine Aquino-Fournier.
Nagtapos ng Bachelor of Science major in Biology si Aquino-Fournier noong 1996. Taong 2003 naman nang gumraduate siya ng Master of Science in Genetics.
Pinamumunuan ng Pinay ang application na tinatawag na HiDRA-seq at the Functional Genomic Center Zurich (FGCZ), na isang core facility ng University of Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.
“According to Aquino-Fournier, HiDRA-seq detects the novel coronavirus using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), a state-of-the-art DNA sequencing technology,” batay sa post.
Ang NGS technology ay ginagamit daw para matukoy ang DNA sequence o itsura ng cell o organismo.
“It analyzes billions of DNA fragments from a cell in a matter of hours.”
Sa isang panayam sinabi ni Aquino-Fournier na halos kapareho lang ng nasabing teknolohiya ang kasalukuyang ginagamit ng karamihan na rRT-PCR test.
“The difference is that [while] in rRT-PCR, the output is a fluorescent intensity, in our test, the output is COVID-specific sequences. Since we have the sequences, we can determine the strain of the virus depending on the mutations that we find,” ayon sa Pinay scientist.
“In the technology we developed, we are trying to skip the part of extracting the genetic material and get it straight from saliva, or gargles, or directly from the swab.”
Nilinaw ng UPLB alumna na walang intensyon ang kanilang hanay na palitan ang teknolohiya ng rRT-PCR.
“Since there is a shortage of materials used for rRT–PCR, we tried to come up with a technique to not affect their supply.”
Sa isang statement naman, sinabi ni Ralph Schlapbach, head ng FGCZ, na ang kanilang inisyatibo ay hindi para sa diagnostic purposes, kahit pa maganda ang ipinakikitang resulta nito.
