What are we doing about COVID-19?
Most of the Open Bioeconomy Lab are now working from home without access to labs but we are collaborating with colleagues on several continents to do what we can to overcome issues faced by labs performing research on COVID-19 or undertaking diagnostics:
- We have collaborated on sharing COVID-relevant technologies through the Open COVID Pledge and the Public Domain Gazette
- We are working closely with the Ethiopian Biotechnology Institute and Institut IRNAS to automate testing and develop a local RT-LAMP assay, funded by the Cambridge-Africa Alborada Fund.
- Together with the Federici Lab at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, the Free Genes Project, Open Science Network Society and Ginkgo Bioworks, we have developed a Research In Diagnostics DNA Collection to enable local production of enzymes for COVID-19 research.
- We have launched Reclone.org (the Reagent Collaboration Network) with many international partners to share best practices, protocols, reagents and more.
We published a review in PLOS Biology of Open Hardware efforts in COVID-19, an article on Crisis-Critical IP in Transactions in Engineering Management and appeared on the Nature CoronaPod podcast. Our work on the Open Enzymes Collection was also featured in the Nature Biotechnology Editorial “Open for outbreaks”.
We have various additional projects in the planning stages and are always open to collaborations so get in touch!
COVID-19 Relevant Projects
Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay.