Hyderabad: Mapmygenome India, as part of its partner Zymo Research’s initiative to donate one million COVID-19 kits to India, donated one lakh COVID-19 kits to the Telangana government today.
Mapmygenome is India’s largest personal genomics company that encourages people to be proactive about their health. It offers personalized health solutions based on genetic tests that help people get to understand their genetic selves
The team is working with other state governments to facilitate the distribution in all major states in India. These kits include the new DNA/RNA Shield – DirectDetect reagent and collection devices. With this kit, sample handling is safer and testing time is much lower, Mapmygenome stated in a press release.
The DNA/RNA Shield – DirectDetect testing kit contains the DNA/RNA Shield – DirectDetect reagent with swab collection devices.
The reagent safeguards viral RNA from degradation for safe, ambient temperature collection and transportation of samples without the need for nucleic acid extraction. Removing the nucleic acid extraction step reduces the time to get PCR test results. Compared against other reagents, DNA/RNA Shield – DirectDetect does not inhibit downstream RT-PCR.
“DNA/RNA Shield – DirectDetect™ enables countries seeing an increase in COVID-19 cases to perform COVID-19 testing without extraction, therefore removing the barrier of limited extraction resources. It’s our way of providing humanitarian support to people in need,” said Dr. Marc Van Eden, vice president of business development at Zymo Research, in a press release on Wednesday.
He further added that they teamed up with Mapmygenome because of their ability to rapidly deploy and facilitate RT-PCR testing.
Anu Acharya, CEO of Mapmygenome said, “Mapmygenome has always been at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19, in terms of testing and prevention. Our partnership with Zymo Research has had an important role to play in this journey.” She further remarked that they are thrilled to be part of this next step in the fight against COVID-19.
“While many biotechnology and testing suppliers have tended to concentrate on their domestic testing efforts, we appreciate Zymo Research’s global humanitarian effort to help eradicate COVID,” Acharya said. Zymo Research is a privately owned company that has been serving the scientific and diagnostics community with state-of-the-art molecular biology tools since 1994