Freeze-Dried Technique Used to Preserve Food Maybe Used to Preserve COVID Tests in the Future

2021-03-18 , 4:23 pm

By now, I’m sure we’ve all heard the news or even experienced some COVID-19 vaccines ourselves.

And as of 17 March, the Moderna Vaccine is also being distributed around the country.

Between that and the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, however, Singapore is still looking for ways to get other types of vaccines here.

So with that in mind, one company here decided to make their own.

With a method that you often see used with preserving food.

Freeze-Dried Technique Used to Preserve Food Might Be Used to Preserve COVID Tests in the Future

Do you know how you sometimes freeze dry meat? Well, how about freeze-drying a PCR test kit?

It was reported that Local biotech company BioAcumen Global is attempting to develop PCR test kits using a method known as lyophilisation.

This would supposedly simplify transportation and storage, along with being kept at room temperature without degrading for up to six months.

Currently, regular PCR kits need to be stored below 0 deg C.

On 16 March, Tuesday, the company opened a new lyophilisation facility.

It has the capacity to freeze-dry 2,400 PCR tests a day, with hopes to double this capacity soon.

The company estimates around 20,000 ‘wet’ kits being produced per day.

Meanwhile, the freeze-dried kits are expected to be ready within two to three months.

According to Mr Jimmy Toh, BioAcumen’s director, lyophilised PCR kits will be slightly more expensive than the wet versions, but not by too much.

The freeze-drying process for PCR kits has a few steps.

Kits are first frozen at below -80 deg C for four hours to ensure that the contents are completely frozen.

They then undergo a process known as primary drying to remove the ice crystals under low pressure.

This takes roughly five hours, and around 90 per cent of the water molecules are removed at this stage,

The final stage, known as secondary drying, removes any residual moisture in the sample and needs an additional two hours.

If you’re still feeling a little cold about this idea, don’t be.

It’s actually really important.

Being freeze-dried means more test kits can be shipped to more rural areas and have more people be tested.

Smaller clinics that can’t set up conventional PCR tests would be helped by this too.

And BioAccumen has experience with this method, having already been freeze-drying African swine fever test kits.

Almost 200 of these PCR tests will be shipped to Bangkok next week.

As of Tuesday, they’ve partnered with LGC, Biosearch Technologies, which is headquartered in Britain.

The latter will manufacture the components in diagnostic kits and BioAcumen will assemble before freeze-drying them.

This would help boost the supply chain of lyophilised kits and quicken the time they take to reach the market.

BioAcumen Global aims to provide lyophilisation services to other companies and research labs.

They will eventually tackle freeze-drying in areas such as food science and drugs.

Featured Image: Siraj Ahmad / Shutterstock.com