Key Findings
The University of New Hampshire COVID-19 lab has completed more than one million tests to detect and monitor the coronavirus, running close to 20,000 tests each week. Screening is done on all UNH campuses, for other institutions in the University System of New Hampshire, and in partnership with the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services to service over 100 long-term care facilities, elementary and high schools, shelters, and correctional facilities. These tests detect positive cases and diagnose the specific variant to prevent further spread of the virus.
About the co-Researcher
W. Kelley Thomas, Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Biomedical Science, Director of UNH’s Hubbard Center for Genome Studies, Scientific Director of the UNH COVID-19 Test Lab
Contact information: Kelley.Thomas@unh.edu, 603-862-2470, Hubbard Center for Genome Studies at UNH
First reported on in UNH Today.
Researchers: W. Kelley THomas
A uniquely designed COVID-19 lab on the campus of the University of New Hampshire has completed over one million tests to detect and monitor the coronavirus. The cutting-edge lab not only performs specifically designed self-swab tests for students, faculty and staff but also plays an important testing role to help provide a safe environment for the greater community by processing tests for more than 125 other groups, including secondary schools, long term-care facilities and other colleges in the state.
“The UNH lab was set up in record time to provide an aggressive way to keep our university community safe and over the past year and a half has grown to be an integral part of the state’s COVID-19 surveillance as well as a national leader in COVID genomics and a model for collegiate testing,” said Marian McCord, senior vice provost for research, economic engagement and outreach. “It’s a testament to the extensive expertise at UNH and the dedication that has played a vital part in helping keep the community safe.”
“The overall goal is to identify cases early to allow for proper care and prevent further spread of the virus.”
The inventive laboratory located on the Durham campus runs close to 20,000 tests each week. Set up in the summer of 2020 to exclusively test for COVID-19, it was originally designed to fulfill the university’s commitment to monitor the student population and quickly identify and prevent any spread of the virus. Now screening is done on all UNH campuses—Durham, Concord and Manchester—as well as for the other institutions in the University System of New Hampshire which include Granite State College, Keene State College and Plymouth State University. UNH also works in partnership with the N.H. Department of Health and Human Services to service 45 long-term care facilities, over 60 elementary and high schools, 15 shelters and several correctional facilities. The on-site testing at grade schools is done through the Safer at School Screening program which serves both public and private schools and does asymptomatic screening at no cost to the schools.
“If the state department of public health, or any of our partners, has a sample that comes back positive, UNH’s lab can conduct whole genome sequencing on those positive cases to identify the specific variant,” said W. Kelley Thomas, professor of molecular, cellular and biomedical sciences and director of the Hubbard Center for Genome Studies. “The overall goal is to identify cases early to allow for proper care and prevent further spread of the virus.”
The lab, which has been certified by the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments, or CLIA, is set up to check for COVID-19. The testing procedure uses what is known as pooled testing where individual samples are combined and tested together to allow for faster results. The lab team receives the test tubes containing samples, scans the assigned barcodes, and loads them into an automated testing machine. Then a liquid sample is extracted from each swab tube to detect the presence of the virus’s RNA. If RNA is present, it is isolated and then a specially designed machine, called RT-PCR, performs a multi-plex test where it probes three different areas of the virus’s genetic makeup to look for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Any tests that come back positive can be sent to UNH’s Hubbard Center for Genome Studies, which can identify variants by sequencing the genome of any positive samples.
