Zymo Research partners with Tecan for COVID-19 viral RNA extraction

Zymo Research has announced a partnership with Tecan to launch a ready-to-go processing solution to streamline viral DNA/RNA extraction from nasopharyngeal swabs, oropharyngeal swabs, saliva, sputum, plasma, and serum. The DreamPrep™ NAP workstation, featuring Zymo Research’s Quick-DNA/RNA™ Viral MagBead Kit, simplifies the process by providing pre-loaded scripts, optimized for viral RNA extraction, that are currently being validated for COVID-19 assays by high complexity testing labs.

As the COVID-19 pandemic expands, laboratories are scaling up testing using high-throughput automated workflows to isolate the viral RNA for subsequent detection. These workflows typically require time-consuming scripting, configuration, and optimization for the nucleic acid extraction to function properly, which can dramatically decrease lab scalability in this critical time.

“Nucleic acid extractions can be one of the most challenging, frustrating, and time-consuming portions of a workflow to automate,” said Ryan Kemp, Director of Nucleic Acid Solutions at Zymo Research. “With push-to-start sample purification, the DreamPrep™ NAP workstation is uniquely positioned to help labs around the world quickly and effectively scale their testing to accommodate a much larger number of tests and ultimately mitigate the spread of the virus.”

Kemp notes, “We understand the need to rapidly respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and have dramatically increased our supply of the Quick-DNA/RNA™ Viral MagBead extraction kits. Additionally, we have expanded our team of technical experts to help with the global effort. Both Zymo Research and Tecan are giving the highest priority to assist researchers who are extracting viral RNA using the DreamPrep™ NAP workstation.”

In the past year, Zymo Research and Tecan have worked together to optimize magnetic bead-based extraction of viral RNA using the cutting-edge DreamPrep™ NAP workstation. The result of this collaboration is a preprogrammed, preconfigured, load-and-go system that is optimized for high-throughput viral RNA extraction. The workstation features a user-friendly interface and guided setup to streamline implementation.

“By combining the Zymo Research optimized extraction kits with our easy-to-use liquid handling platform, we have delivered a complete viral processing solution with the DreamPrep™ NAP workstation,” said Beatrice Marg-Haufe, Product Manager at Tecan. “In this challenging climate, we are working very closely with Zymo Research to enable scientists to respond to this pandemic quickly.”

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