TestEd: Developing and evaluating an affordable whole-system approach for early detection of viral infections in workplaces and communities

TestEd：开发和评估一种经济实惠的全系统方法，用于早期检测工作场所和社区的病毒感染

• 批准号: MR/W006243/1
• 负责人: Timothy Aitman
• 金额: $ 231.64万
• 依托单位: University of Edinburgh
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=MR%2FW006243%2F1
• 关键词: TestEd; Developing; evaluating; affordable; whole

The TestEd programme at the University of Edinburgh will develop and evaluate an affordable whole system approach for early detection of COVID-19 that will provide a blueprint for large-scale regular testing to protect workplaces and communities from COVID-19 and, potentially, future pandemics. Specifically we will:- Implement our system that has now been established in two Institutes of the University of Edinburgh for streamlined, effective and accessible participant and sample registration, COVID-19 based on novel sample pooling strategies, automated, timely feedback of results, across the entire University of Edinburgh population, for twice weekly testing and rapid isolation of asymptomatic carriers- Conduct online surveys of all participants, and qualitative interviews on those who test positive for the virus, to understand attitudes and behaviour in the face of the pandemic, and the views of staff and students regarding regular testing and the potential need for self-isolation- Carry out health economic modelling of the pipeline, including our strategy to test for the virus in pooled samples that our preliminary analyses (see Additional Information Form) have shown have the potential for tests costing 40p per sample, at least ten-fold lower than other testing strategies- Evaluate efficacy and efficiency of the two pooling strategies - PCR-based hypercube pooling and sequence-based SwabSeq - by side-by-side comparison of their performance against individual PCR tests on a minimum of 10,000 samples and then, by using the pooling strategy with better performance, to test half a million samples collected from University staff and students within the 12 month period of the award- Engage with our collaborators within and outside the University to optimise the logistics of our laboratory processes, thereby minimising the time of each laboratory step and hands-on lab staff time, maximising use of robotic automation, thereby minimising overall turnaround time. Our current turnaround time is 100% return of results within 24 hours of the end of the 8-hour sample collection period. We shall monitor this through the course of the study period, providing reports to our participant community and to the MRC, aiming to remain as close as possible to 100% return of results within 24 hours throughout scale up and to full testing capacity- Engage with our participant community, the University leadership team, our collaborators within the NHS, our collaborators providing equipment and reagents and Edinburgh Innovations (our technology transfer organisation) to develop opportunities for future funding and deployment of our pipeline and knowhow within and outside the University at the conclusion of the funding period. This includes the opportunity to work with Government and non-governmental organisations to influence policy and to deploy our system, knowledge and experience to other workplaces and communities- Engage with policymakers and healthcare providers to ensure that our results and experience with large-scale testing can be fed into national and possibly international policy and practice for pandemic responses.

爱丁堡大学的测试项目将开发和评估一种可负担得起的整体系统方法，用于早期发现COVID-19，这将为大规模定期检测提供蓝图，以保护工作场所和社区免受COVID-19以及潜在的未来大流行的影响。具体而言，我们将：-在爱丁堡大学的两个研究所实施我们已经建立的系统，简化，有效和方便的参与者和样本注册，基于新型样本池策略的COVID-19，自动，及时反馈结果，在整个爱丁堡大学的人口中进行每周两次的检测和快速隔离无症状携带者-对所有参与者进行在线调查。对病毒检测呈阳性的人进行定性访谈，以了解面对大流行的态度和行为，以及工作人员和学生对定期检测和可能需要自我隔离的看法——对管道进行卫生经济建模，包括我们在汇总样本中检测病毒的战略，我们的初步分析（见补充信息表）表明，每个样本的检测成本可能为40便士。评估两种池化策略（基于PCR的超立方体池化和基于序列的SwabSeq）的功效和效率，将它们的性能与至少10,000个样本上的单个PCR测试进行并行比较，然后，通过使用性能更好的池化策略，在12个月内测试从大学员工和学生那里收集的50万个样本-与大学内外的合作者合作，优化实验室流程的后勤，从而最大限度地减少每个实验室步骤的时间和实验室员工的动手时间，最大限度地利用机器人自动化，从而最大限度地减少总体周转时间。我们目前的周转时间是在8小时样本收集期结束后24小时内100%返回结果。我们将在整个研究过程中监测这一点，向我们的参与者社区和MRC提供报告，旨在在整个扩大规模和充分测试能力的24小时内尽可能保持100%的结果返回-与我们的参与者社区，大学领导团队，我们在NHS内的合作者，我们的合作伙伴提供设备和试剂，爱丁堡创新公司（我们的技术转移组织）在资助期结束时为未来的资助和部署我们的管道和大学内外的专业知识创造机会。这包括有机会与政府和非政府组织合作，影响政策，并将我们的系统、知识和经验部署到其他工作场所和社区——与政策制定者和医疗保健提供者合作，确保我们大规模测试的结果和经验能够用于国家和可能的国际流行病应对政策和实践。

项目成果

Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behavior Related to COVID-19 Testing: A Rapid Scoping Review.

• DOI: 10.3390/diagnostics11091685
• 发表时间: 2021-09-15
• 期刊: Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland)
• 作者: Bevan I;Stage Baxter M;Stagg HR;Street A
• 通讯作者: Street A

Students' and staffs' views and experiences of asymptomatic testing on a university campus during the COVID-19 pandemic in Scotland: a mixed methods study.

• DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2022-065021
• 发表时间: 2023-03-20
• 期刊: BMJ open
• 影响因子: 2.9