The Open Bioeconomy Lab has been awarded an Alborada Fund from the Cambridge-Africa Initiative to work with partners in Ethiopia to increase COVID-19 testing at the Ethiopian Biotechnology Institute ten-fold by May 2021.

The current testing technique is RT-qPCR and 96 tests a day a possible at the moment. This can be trebled within 3 months by introducing the OpenTrons system to the process, and will be possible using the funding from Cambridge-Africa ALBORADA.

The main aim of the project is to increase testing ten-fold within 12 months. That will require a transition from the RT-qPCR technique to the RT-LAMP method, as well as continued use of the OpenTrons system.

The project to scale up COVID-19 testing through open science hardware and local manufacturing is an ideal fit with The Open Bioeconomy Lab mission. The main elements of using open source hardware and training the local workforce in lab techniques can be quickly focused on this project aim.

Our partners in this project are the Ethiopian Biotechnology Institute and Addis Ababa University.