A team of scientists from Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) is working to quadruple test speeds and increase the number of laboratories able to test for Covid-19 without compromising on quality and test accuracy. The team includes scientists from WIT’s Pharmaceutical and Molecular Biotechnology Research Centre (PMBRC) and Eco-Innovation Research Centre (EIRC) who are working with University Hospital Waterford (UHW) and WIT spin-out company BioEnz Technologies.
“The most reliable Covid-19 tests use a technique called polymerase chain reaction or PCR,” says project lead Dr Lee Coffey of PMBRC and founder of BioEnz Technologies. “The virus is cracked open and the genetic material or RNA is extracted. This is then copied over and over, using PCR until it can be detected.
However, the PCR step is slow and can take over two hours. We aim to speed this up and bring the time down to under 30 minutes. We also plan to validate the method on a wider range of equipment, thereby increasing the number of labs capable of testing for Covid-19. With the expertise in the team coming together from WIT, UHW and BioEnz, we can trial thousands of better test options as quickly as possible.”
Letterkenny Institute of Technology (LYIT) has been working in close collaboration with Ulster University on an all-Ireland Covid-19 data tracker. This initiative was developed as part of the Centre for Personalised Medicine, a €8.6 million EU research project funded by Interreg.
Kevin Blake, research database manager with LYIT, has been working closely with Ulster University researchers Dr Magda Bucholc and Dr Matthew Manktelow to curate collated data to feed into a Covid-19 data tracker that charts positive cases, tests completed and deaths in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Visual comparator
The Covid-19 data tracker allows members of the public to access a visual comparator of collated Covid-19 data from official government and health sources across the island of Ireland. The tracker reports cases at the local government district level in Northern Ireland and county level across the island of Ireland, providing gender and age breakdowns of reported cases, growth rates and statistics per 100,000 of the population.
The tracker also visualises changes in daily mobility by region and across different categories of places and activities using Google and Apple feeds.
“Given the unique circumstance and challenges faced by the island of Ireland, particularly in the border regions – where we have substantial flow of people in both directions on a daily basis – the ability to provide the public with data collated from both jurisdictions is vitally important,” says Dr Michael McCann of LYIT.
“This Covid-19 tracker provides much-needed information regarding the dynamic situation we are all faced with in relation to infection rates and provides insight into the daily situation on the island. The global health crisis we are all facing clearly demonstrates the need for cross-Border initiatives, and LYIT welcomes these critical opportunities to collaborate with our academic research partners in Northern Ireland.”
IT Sligo was among the first of the institutes to respond to Covid-19. In conjunction with colleagues at Sligo University Hospital, IT Sligo designed and prototyped ventilators made from readily available components such as electrical components from computers and mechanical car parts.
The project was spearheaded by colleagues from the faculty of Engineering and Design.
In addition, IT Sligo responded to a call from the HSE to protect front-line workers. 120 members of IT Sligo staff volunteered for the Visor Project. IT Sligo manufactured three types of visors and 12,000 were produced and distributed across the region. This saw the institute collaborate with the HSE on a national and regional level. A secondary supply of visors was distributed directly to local nursing homes, carer associations, the Chime Deaf Society, Garda stations, GP practices, local ambulance services and other essential services across the northwest, western, midlands and eastern regions.
Early responder
Another early responder was Cork Institute of Technology, which received funding from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) for research into barrier masks.
The Making Aerosol Safety Known (MASK) project aims to quantitatively determine how well commonly available face-mask materials suppress the transmission of exhaled droplets. Given that the reproduction rate of Covid-19 is linearly related to both the efficacy of a mask and the percentage of a population wearing masks, a small change in either makes a large change in disease transmission rates.
The project will help identify optimally suppressive materials that are comfortable to wear for extended periods, can be produced in large quantities and are reusable and inexpensive. This will be useful not only during Covid-19 but also to assist with suppressing other airborne diseases.
Meanwhile, the virtual reality/augmented reality (VR/AR) team in the Telecommunications Software and Systems Group at WIT has combined visual and kinaesthetic learning tools to raise awareness of Covid-19. Currently, social stories are utilised to try to explain new scenarios like Covid-19 to children with autism, but this has limitations.
VR, with its interactive and engaging environment simulating real-life scenarios, takes this Covid-19 education to the next level through the incorporation of role-playing, enabling them to practice their social skills, alleviate phobias all the while raising awareness and instilling knowledge around the Covid-19 rules and the new norm.
The result is CoronaVRus, an interactive VR experience aimed at children, which is autism spectrum disorder (ASD) friendly and can be used as an educational tool in a fun and engaging environment.
CoronaVRus adopts the HSE Covid-19 safety guidelines, and offers three VR experiences to showcase, educate and demonstrate such safety guidelines in an intuitive manner. The experiences cover handwashing, social distancing and the overall HSE guidelines.