The aim of this repository is to act as a central location for a set of guidelines, SoPs, methodologies, software etc. for turning a research lab with PCR and RNA expertise into an industrial scale covid-19 testing facility.
Any lab working on doing this is welcome and encouraged to join in here so we can 'open source' how to do this. If we can all learn from each other we will be able to improve the way we do things and act as a source of information to all.
The main issues that need to be considered are :
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Sample Management : It's very important to not lose track of samples and guarantee that results are assigned to the correct sample. All samples that enter the production line need to be processed as sequentially as possible to get results quickly and to ensure that no samples are missed or delayed along the way.
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Biosafety : All samples need to be deactivated to reduce the need for a biosafety level 2 facility and to ensure the safety of the laboratory technicians
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Cross-contamination : Given that there are a large number of samples floating about, protocols for avoiding cross contamination invalidating test results are needed.
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'External Interface' : How samples come in to the system - reception protocols, and how results are collated and returned back upstream.
If you want to contribute you can fork the repository and submit a pull request. See https://help.github.com/en/github/collaborating-with-issues-and-pull-requests/creating-a-pull-request
You can also email Covid19testlab@crg.eu to be added as a contributor - just send us your github ID and a brief intro to yourself and we can add you.
The README uses Markdown. Here is a markdown cheat sheet : https://help.github.com/en/github/collaborating-with-issues-and-pull-requests/creating-a-pull-request
Contributions that would be welcome are any documentation (ideally in markdown linked off the readme) that expand upon the items above. Source code for LIMS systems, database schemas, slack chat robots etc. etc. Basically anything you think may be useful can be considered. If you have the information but are not confident in adding it to github you can email it to Covid19testlab@crg.eu and we can add it ourselves.