Starting with a 5-minute lysis step that “breaks open” cells and virus particles, RT-LAMP employs a simple reaction in which the viral RNA is converted into DNA and amplified billionfold within less than 30 minutes. The generation of such tremendous amounts of DNA can be directly observed with the naked eye by a visual colour change from purple to sky-blue in the reaction tube. Combining this method with a simple RNA enrichment step is at the heart of the newly developed method as it boosts sensitivity by orders of magnitude. Neither specialist laboratory equipment nor expert skills are needed – the most challenging step is to keep the sample at a stable temperature of approximately 63°C during the 30 minutes of the reaction, a task that can – if necessary – be fulfilled by re-purposed kitchen devices.

“Our method builds on existing protocols developed for pathogen detection”, says Julius Brennecke of the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology (IMBA) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. “For SARS-CoV-2-detection, we managed to improve it to a level that matches qPCR-like sensitivity on crude patient samples. We are extremely excited and can barely wait to see it applied. We expect that these improvements, including the ability to perform pooled screening, will make a real difference not only in developing countries, but in low-resource environments anywhere in the World. Sensitive, affordable and rapid SARS-CoV-2 screening and diagnostics approaches are much needed now.”

“The way this whole project unfolded is rather exceptional,” says Andrea Pauli of the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP). “It started off as a crazy idea, triggered by our believe that as scientists we must act to help in the current pandemic. Through a remarkable coincidence, Max Kellner, an Austrian PhD student at the institute LMB in Cambridge who had prior experience with isothermal amplification methods, got stranded in his hometown Vienna during the lockdown. When we found out, we teamed him up with Vienna BioCenter PhD students Julian Ross and Jakob Schnabl. And so, two groups, normally working on Drosophila oogenesis and zebrafish embryology, came together and set foot in a new field. An exceptional level of team spirit and enthusiasm allowed us to push this project much further than we had ever envisioned and made it a once in a life-time experience for everyone involved.”