COVID-19

Tips for Attendees: Making the Most of a Virtual Conference

Posted on by Promega

Today’s blog was written by guest bloggers Tara Luther, Marketing Specialist Genetic Identity, and Allison Suchon, Manager of Tradeshows and Events at Promega.

2020 has been a year of changes for all of us. We’ve learned how to keep in touch while physically distancing. We’ve learned how to work from home with furry coworkers who encourage us to break from the traditional 9–5 routine. We’ve learned how to make changes to our labs to stay safe and productive.

For many of us, this will also be the first time that we attend a virtual conference. While it’s easy to focus on what we’ll be missing by not gathering together, there are advantages to moving to the virtual space. By making the most out of your virtual experience, you’ll be able to walk away with valuable insights, a robust network, and insights that you can use in your own lab.

To help, we’ve put together a list of tips that will help you maximize your experience at any virtual conferences you attend.

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Connecting and Collaborating: How Scientists Across the Globe are Supporting Each Other During The COVID-19 Pandemic

Posted on by Jordan Villanueva

Many research labs around the world have temporarily closed their doors in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, while others are experiencing unprecedented need for reagents to perform viral testing. This urgency has led many scientists to make new connections and build creative, collaborative solutions.

“In labs that are still open for testing or other purposes, there’s certainly heightened anxiety,” says Tony Vanden Bush, Client Support Specialist. “I feel that right now, I need to help them deal with that stress however possible.”

Last week, Tony was contacted by a lab at the University of Minnesota that was preparing to serve as a secondary COVID-19 testing facility for a nearby hospital lab. The two labs needed to process up to 6,000 samples per day, and the university lab was far short of that capacity.

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Emergency Use Authorization: The What, the Why and the How

Posted on by Promega

This blog is written by guest blogger, Heather Tomlinson, former Director of Clinical Diagnostics at Promega.

Finding safe and effective treatments for human diseases takes time.  Medication and diagnostic tests can take decades to discover, develop and prove safe and effective.  In the United States, the FDA stands as the gold-standard gatekeeper to ensure that treatments and tests are reliable and safe. The time we wait in review and clearance means less risk of ineffective or unsafe treatments.

And yet, in a pandemic, we are behind before we even start the race to develop diagnostic tests, so critical for understanding how an infectious disease is spreading. That is when processes like the FDA’s fast track of Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) are critical. Such authorization allows scientists and clinicians to be nimble and provide the best possible test protocol as quickly as possible, with the understanding that these protocols will continue to be evaluated and improved as new information becomes available. The EUA focuses resources and accelerates reviews that keep science at the fore and gets us our best chance at staying safe and healing.

The Maxwell 48 RSC Instrument and the Maxwell RSC Total Viral Nucleic Acid Isolation Kit are now listed as options within the CDC EUA protocol.

For scientists working around the clock, the FDA’s EUA process is ready to review and respond. Getting an EUA  gives clinical labs a very specific and tested resource to guide them to the tools and tests to use in a crisis.

Typically the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) will develop the first test or protocol that receives FDA EUA in response to a crisis like a pandemic.  For COVID-19 the CDC 2019-Novel Coronavirus Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel received FDA EUA clearance in early February. This is the test protocol used by the public health labs that work with the CDC and test manufacturers around the world.

Throughout a crisis such as the current pandemic, scientists continually work to improve the testing protocols and add options to the EUA protocols. This enables more flexibility in the test protocols. Promega is fortunate to play a part of the CDC EUA equation for diagnostic testing. Our GoTaq® Probe 1-Step PRT-qPCR System is one of a few approved options for master mixes in the  CDC qPCR diagnostic test,  and now our medium-throughput Maxwell 48 Instrument and Maxwell Viral Total Nucleic Acid Purification Kit  were added to the CDC protocol as an option for the RNA isolation step as well. These additions to the CDC EUA means that laboratories have more resources at their disposal for the diagnostic testing which is so critical to effective pandemic response.

The Emergency Use Authorization provides the FDA guidance to strengthen our nation’s public health during emergencies, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. The EUA allows continual improvement of an authorized protocol through the collaborative efforts scientists in all academia, government and industry to identify and qualify the most reliable technologies and systems, giving labs more flexibility as new products are added as options.

Dr. Tomlinson was the Director for the Global Clinical Diagnostics Strategic Business Unit at Promega Corporation bringing over 15 years of experience in clinical diagnostic test development. She was responsible for leading the team that drives strategy in the clinical market for Promega. Her background was in infectious disease diagnostic testing, with a focus on HIV drug resistance and evolution. Her last work focused on oncology companion diagnostic test development.  Heather was an accomplished international presenter, delivering conference presentations in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Heather passed away in 2023.

Related Posts

Go fISH! Using in situ Hybridization to Search for Expression of a SARS-CoV-2 Viral Entry Protein

Posted on by Leah Cronan

Loss of smell (olfaction) is a commonly reported symptom of COVID-19 infection. Recently, Bilinska, et al. set out to better understand the underlying mechanisms for loss of smell resulting from SARS-CoV-2 infection. In their research, they used in situ hybridization to investigate the expression of TMPRSS2, a SARS-CoV-2 viral entry protein in olfactory epithelium tissues of mice.

Continue reading “Go fISH! Using in situ Hybridization to Search for Expression of a SARS-CoV-2 Viral Entry Protein”

Using Wastewater Surveillance to Track COVID-19 Outbreaks

Posted on by Promega

Today’s blog is written by guest blogger, Sameer Moorji, Director, Applied Markets.

Even as countries are now gradually starting to reopen after lockdown, the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over. Researchers around the world continue to find new ways to monitor, prevent and treat the disease. One new way of monitoring COVID-19 outbreaks relies on a somewhat unexpected source: sewage water.

In March 2020, researchers at the KWR Water Research Institute found the presence of SARS CoV-2 RNA in wastewater samples collected near Schiphol airport in Amsterdam and several other sites in Netherlands. The result came within a week after the first case of COVID-19 in the country was confirmed. This study opened the door to the possibility of using wastewater-based epidemiology to determine population-wide infections of COVID-19.

What is Wastewater-based epidemiology?

Wastewater based epidemiology (WBE), or sewershed surveillance, is an approach using analysis of wastewater to identify presence of biologicals or chemicals relevant for public health monitoring. WBE is not new, as wastewater has previously been used to detect the presence of pharmaceutical or industrial waste, drug entities (including opioid abuse), viruses and potential emergence of super bugs. In fact, several countries have been successful in containing Polio and Hepatitis A outbreaks within their geographic locations.

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Choices for Measuring Luciferase-Tagged Reporter Pseudotyped Viral Particles in Coronavirus Research

Posted on by Kyle Hooper

Coronavirus (CoV) researchers are working quickly to understand the entry of SARS-CoV-2 into cells. The Spike or S proteins on the surface of a CoV is trimer. The monomer is composed of an S1 and S2 domain. The division of S1 and S2 happens in the virus producing cell through a furin cleavage site between the two domains. The trimer binds to cell surface proteins. In the case of the SARS-CoV, the receptor is angiotensin converting enzyme 2. (ACE2). The MERS-CoV utilizes the cell-surface dipeptidyl peptidase IV protein. SARS-CoV-2 uses ACE2 as well. Internalized S protein goes though a second cleavage by a host cell protease, near the S1/S2 cleavage site called S2′, which leads to a drastic change in conformation thought to facilitate membrane fusion and entry of the virus into the cell (1).  

CDC / Alissa Eckert, MS; Dan Higgins, MAMS

Rather than work directly with the virus, researchers have chosen to make pseudotyped viral particles. Pseudotyped viral particles contain the envelope proteins of a well-known parent virus (e.g., vesicular stomatitis virus) with the native host cell binding protein (e.g., glycoprotein G) exchanged for the host cell binding protein (S protein) of the virus under investigation. The pseudotyped viral particle typically carries a reporter plasmid, most commonly firefly luciferase (FLuc), with the necessary genetic elements to be packaged in the particle. 

To create the pseudotyped viral particle, plasmids or RNA alone are transfected into cells and the pseudotyped viruses work their way through the endoplasmic reticulum and golgi to bud from the cells into the culture medium. The pseudoviruses are used to study the process of viral entry via the exchanged protein from the virus of interest. Entry is monitored through assay of the reporter. The reporter could be a luciferase or a fluorescent protein.   

Continue reading “Choices for Measuring Luciferase-Tagged Reporter Pseudotyped Viral Particles in Coronavirus Research”

38 Years After First Release, RNasin Protects COVID-19 Tests

Posted on by Jordan Villanueva

A protein first purified and sold by Promega almost four decades ago has emerged as a crucial tool in many COVID-19 testing workflows. RNasin® Ribonuclease Inhibitor was first released in 1982, only four years after the company was started. At that time, the entire Promega catalog fit on a single sheet of 8.5 × 11” paper, and RNasin was one of the first products to draw widespread attention to Promega. Today, the demand for this foundational product has skyrocketed as it supports labs responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

What is RNasin® Ribonuclease Inhibitor?

RNA is notoriously vulnerable to contamination by RNases. These enzymes degrade RNA by breaking the phosphodiester bonds forming the backbone of the molecule. To say that RNases are everywhere is barely an exaggeration – almost every known organism produces some form of RNase, and they’re commonly found in all kinds of biological samples. They’re easily introduced into experimental systems, since even human skin secretes a form of RNase. Once they’re present, it’s very hard to get rid of them. Even an autoclave can’t inactivate RNases; the enzymes will refold and retain much of their original activity.

RNasin® Ribonuclease Inhibitor is a protein that has been shown to inhibit many common contaminating RNases, but without disrupting the activity of enzymes like reverse transcriptase that may be essential to an experiment. It works by binding to the RNase enzyme, prevent it from acting on RNA molecules. This is important for ensuring that RNA samples are intact before performing a complex assay.

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Working from Home: Finding Productivity in this New Normal

Posted on by Grant Kees

During this time of adjusting to a new normal, one of the most difficult things that I have had to get used to is being productive in my own home. Work from home (WFH) days are embraced by some people and not by others. For me, transitioning from working in an office and school setting, to working at-home and completing online courses, has led me on a search for answers about how to get the most out of my day. After creating a productive at-home work environment for me, I wanted to share some of my findings with you.

Here are some of the tips that I have found useful:

Section out a portion of your home for work only.

When I first started working from home, I moved room to room working wherever I felt most comfortable. I soon found this affected my organization and time management, so I started keeping all my work in one area. Now, as I sit here writing this post, I know where all of my work is, and I also know that when I walk out of this area I can ‘power down’ my mind knowing I no longer have to do work.

Power off your electronics when not working.

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Public-Private Initiative to Increase COVID-19 Testing Capacity by Using Promega Maxwell Instrument in India

Posted on by Promega

This blog is written by guest blogger, Dr Rajnish Bharti, General Manager of Promega Biotech India Pvt Ltd.

As COVID-19 cases accelerate, the country of India has decided to scale up testing capacity to 100,000 tests per day in the coming days.

In a major step to counter the coronavirus crisis, Promega India is supporting government agencies through our automated instruments. The Maxwell® RSC instrument is a compact, automated RNA extraction platform that processes up to 48 samples simultaneously in less than 35 minutes. The automated Promega solution allows laboratories to process up to 400 samples in a typical 8-hour shift.

Scientists in India train on the Maxwell RSC 48
Forensic Science Laboratory-Jaipur and SMS Hospital Jaipur join hands together to use Promega Maxwell® RSC 48 to Increase COVID-19 Testing capacity.
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Targeting IL-6: How A Drug That Helped a 6-Year-Old Beat Cancer Can Save COVID-19 Patients

Posted on by Johanna Lee

In 2012, a 6-year-old girl named Emily Whitehead was battling acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), one of the most common cancers in children. Her cancer was stubborn. After 16 months of chemotherapy, the cancer still would not go into remission. There was nothing else the doctors could do, and she was sent home. She was expected to survive only a few more months. Her parents would not give up and enrolled her into a clinical trial of a new immunotherapy treatment called chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy. She was the first pediatric patient in the program.

Doctors took T cells from Emily’s blood and reprogrammed them in a lab. They essentially sent her T cells to boot camp where they are trained to find cancer cells and destroy them. The reprogrammed T cells were then injected back into her body. A week into treatment, she started getting a fever, the first sign that the treatment was working and her reprogrammed T cells were fighting the cancer. But soon, she got very sick. All of the indicators suggested that she had cytokine release syndrome (CRS)—also known as the cytokine storm. This happens when cytokines are released in response to an infection but the process cannot be turned off. The cytokines continue to attract immune cells to the infection site, causing damage to the patient’s own cells and eventually resulting in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). (Learn more about the cytokine storm in this blog.)

Emily was soon on a ventilator. Tests showed that she had extremely high levels of one particular cytokine: interleukin-6 (IL-6). Desperate to keep her alive, her doctors gave her a known drug that specifically targets IL-6. The results were dramatic. After one single dose, her fever subsided within hours, and she was taken off the ventilator. On May 2nd, 2012, she woke up from an induced coma—it was her 7th birthday. Her doctors said they have never seen a patient that sick get better that quickly.

The drug that saved her life was tocilizumab.

Continue reading “Targeting IL-6: How A Drug That Helped a 6-Year-Old Beat Cancer Can Save COVID-19 Patients”