The first batch of about eight technicians from the University of Hyderabad (UoH)’s School of Life Sciences, are currently undergoing training at the CSIR-CCMB to scale up the testing capacity for COVID-19.
The one-day training is mostly about precautions to be taken when handling the virus as the technical staff will be working at the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD).
A total of 15 technical personnel have been identified for the training, and testing by the UoH personnel will be done in a separate BSL-2 laboratory at the CDFD, where they will be involved in the data entry sample sorting and dividing in coordination with other testing labs. The first batch will be working in the night shift of 2 a.m. to 8 a.m., informed a university spokesperson on Wednesday.
UoH has been selected as a testing centre as part of the many testing centres established by research institutes and laboratories of various ministries and departments, universities, IITs, IISERs, and other institutes of eminence. The Hyderabad cluster consists of CDFD, National Institute of Animal Biotechnology and CSIR-IICT in addition to UoH with CCMB being the coordinating institute.
