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Syracuse University has opened its own on-campus COVID-19 testing lab that will significantly reduce the amount of time needed to process tests and share results.

The lab is a key part of the university’s aggressive testing approach for the spring semester, which requires the entire student body to receive a weekly COVID-19.

The new testing method, aided by SU’s laboratory, will produce results within 24 to 36 hours — significantly faster than in the fall. Here is what you need to know about the new testing method and lab: 

Logistics and location

The new testing strategy has three basic steps: sample collection, pooling and testing. 

Sample collection takes place in the Carrier Dome. Students must spit into a test tube and fill it to a line on the container.

From there, 12 of the individual samples are pooled together in the chemistry department. The pools are then brought to the Life Sciences Building for testing. Ramesh Raina, interim vice president for research, will oversee the lab with a postdoctoral student, four research technicians and two undergraduate students. 

Testing capacity

The new testing lab has the ability to test at least 4,000 people every day, Raina said. This allows the university to conduct around 20,000 tests per week, about double the amount of tests conducted during the fall semester. 

During the fall semester, SU partnered with Upstate Medical University to process tests. Toward the end of the fall semester, Upstate began testing all SUNY students, increasing the hospital’s workload and causing some delays in test results. SU still processes some smaller batches of tests at Upstate but using its own lab allows the university to have more control over the testing process, Raina said.

When pools of saliva samples test positive, the staff at the lab retest each of the 12 samples individually to identify who has contracted the virus. Negative pools, which do not require any subsequent testing, can be screened even quicker, Raina said. 

SU administered just over 100,000 COVID-19 tests on campus between August and December, in partnership with Upstate. The university has said it anticipates collecting between 250,000 and 300,000 samples from students, faculty and staff from January to May, an increase officials believe will prevent a campus shutdown like SU saw in the fall.

New procedures

Under the testing method SU used in the fall, test samples had to go through virus isolation and RNA purification before the PCR test could be performed, Raina said. SalivaDirect, the new testing method developed by Yale University’s public health team, allows polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests to be performed directly on a saliva sample, eliminating those purification and isolation procedures that could delay the testing process by up to 10 hours, Raina said. 

The SalivaDirect testing method is 95% accurate, he said. 

Published on February 8, 2021 at 8:05 pm

Contact Mira: mlberenb@syr.edu