Rapid Molecular Diagnostics For New&Emerging SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern-Protecting Vaccine Efficacy

尽管已经成功开发了几种有效的疫苗，但新冠肺炎大流行仍在威胁英国和全球人口。虽然疫苗接种工作取得了巨大成功，并为促进社会开放和恢复正常提供了基础，但能够逃避免疫反应的SARS-CoV-2变种的出现危及疫苗接种战略的效果。为了在英国人群中保持SARS-CoV-2疫苗的效力，需要对已知的和新出现的SARS-CoV-2令人担忧的变种(VOCs)进行积极和快速的监测。与单独的基因组测序相比，快速和特异的分子诊断可以提供速度和覆盖范围的优势，有利于公共卫生反应，促进遏制。在这个项目中，我们扩展了我们最近开发的SARS-CoV-2变种特异性检测技术，以允许快速区分关注的变种。这种方法可以直接在大型检测机构管道中的阳性样本上立即实施，也可以为护理点(PoC)使用而开发。这项技术将补充目前的基因组测序工作，这些工作允许识别新的和现有的VOCs，并促进谱系跟踪，快速分子诊断能够通过识别关键变异来帮助公共卫生应对，而不需要与基因组测序相关的延迟和亚采样，从而允许快速和灵活的反应，以帮助打破传播链，并在广泛的社区传播发生之前促进遏制。

Despite the successful development of several efficacious vaccines, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to threaten the UK and global populations. Whilst vaccinations efforts have been hugely successful and provide the basis to facilitate opening up of society and a return to normality, the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants capable of evading the immune response endanger the efficacy of the vaccination strategy. To preserve the efficacy of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in the UK population, aggressive and rapid surveillance for known and emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VoCs) is required. Rapid and specific molecular diagnostics can provide speed and coverage advantages compared to genomic sequencing alone, benefitting the public health response to facilitate containment. In this project, we expand our recently developed SARS-CoV-2 variant-specific detection technology to allow rapid discrimination of variants of concern. This approach can be implemented directly and immediately on positive samples in the pipelines of large testing facilities or developed for Point of Care (PoC) use. This technology will complement the current genomic sequencing efforts that allow identification of new and existing VoCs and facilitate lineage tracking, with rapid molecular diagnostics able to assist the public health response by identifying key variants without the delay and sub-sampling associated with genomic sequencing, therefore allowing a rapid and agile response to aid breaking chains of transmission and facilitate containment before widespread community transmission occurs.