Courtesy of Jeffrey Watts/American University
A group of colleges in the Washington, D.C., metro area is collaborating on a new COVID-19 testing program that will also serve Baltimore City Public Schools.
American University and the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area partnered with researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to establish and operate a new mobile lab that they say will soon be able to process more than 50,000 tests per week. The lab will use a saliva-based test developed by UIUC researchers.
Fanta Aw, American’s vice president for campus life and inclusive excellence, said testing has been a challenge for institutions like American that don’t have medical schools. American is already doing both symptomatic and asymptomatic testing but is currently shipping tests to outside labs, with a turnaround time of 48 to 72 hours. The new mobile lab promises to reduce turnaround time to eight hours.