Building testing capacity and sequencing capability for COVID-19 at Tifton Veterinary Diagnostic and Investigational Laboratory (TVDIL)

项目概要： 蒂夫顿兽医诊断和研究实验室（TVDIL），位于南部 格鲁吉亚，是国家动物卫生实验室网络（NAHLN）的一级分支实验室。作为 兽医诊断实验室，我们的使命是检测和报告动物疾病。然而，在这方面， 在COVID-19大流行期间，TVDIL获得了临床实验室改进 修正案（CLIA）注册，并开始人类COVID-19检测，以满足 为我们的乡村医院和诊所提供合理的周转时间。2020年7月至6月30日， 于二零二一年，TVDIL进行了超过27，000次COVID-19实时RT-PCR检测。尽管 服务当地社区的成功，这种人类测试的经验帮助我们决定什么 可以做的是为动物诊断的COVID-19测试激增做准备， 由于州和联邦的限制，在大流行期间定期进行。这个目标 建议为COVID-19动物建立额外的激增能力和测序能力 例为了提高浪涌能力，我们建议获得一个液体处理系统和一个真实的- 时间PCR系统。为了建立SARS-CoV-2的下一代测序（NGS）能力，我们 我也打算为我们新获得NGS测序仪投资耗材试剂和耗材 作为雇用和培训指定人员执行NGS任务。虽然额外的设备 将立即增加测试能力，测序能力依赖于专用的， 经过全面培训的工作人员操作NGS系统。最终，测试能力和排序 从该项目中构建的能力也可以应用于其他场景，例如重要的 动物疾病爆发或是否需要扩大人类COVID-19检测， 未来

Project summary: Tifton Veterinary Diagnostic and Investigational Laboratory (TVDIL), located in southern Georgia, is a Level 1 branch Lab of National Animal Health Laboratory Network (NAHLN). As a veterinary diagnostic lab, our mission is to detect and report diseases in animals. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, TVDIL obtained its Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) registration and started human COVID-19 testing to answer the needs of a reasonable turnaround time for our rural hospitals and clinics. Between July 2020 to June 30, 2021, over 27,000 COVID-19 real-time RT-PCR tests were performed by TVDIL. Despite the success of serving the local community, this human-testing experience helped us decide what could be done to prepare for COVID-19 testing surge in animal diagnostics, which has not been performed regularly during the pandemic due to state and federal restrictions. The goal of this proposal is to build additional surge capacity and sequencing capability for COVID-19 animal cases. To enhance surge capacity, we propose to acquire a liquid handling system and a real- time PCR system. For building next-generation sequencing (NGS) capability for SARS-CoV-2, we intend to invest consumable reagent & supplies for our newly obtained NGS sequencer as well as hire & train designated personnel for performing the NGS task. While additional equipment will increase the testing capacity instantaneously, sequencing capability relies on dedicated and fully trained staff to operate the NGS system. Ultimately, the testing capacity and sequencing capability built from this project can also be applied to other scenarios such as significant animal diseases outbreak or if there is ever a need to expand human COVID-19 testing in the future.