The Hubrecht Institute and Genmab have developed a new robot, the STRIP-1 – test robot, that can process up to 20,000 samples for SARS-CoV-2 testing per 24 hours. This makes the STRIP-1 much faster than all other systems used to date. On Wednesday the 27th of January, Minister Hugo de Jonge from the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, visited the robot at the PAMM medical microbiology laboratory in Veldhoven, the Netherlands. The robot is financed by the Dutch government and can also be used during future pandemics.

Researchers from the Hubrecht Institute (KNAW) and biotechnology company Genmab, together with many other collaborators, have developed a robot that can process up to 20,000 samples per 24 hours for SARS-CoV-2 testing. This means that the robot, called STRIP-1, can process more tests in less time than any other machine known to date. In addition, all samples can be tracked precisely, because they have a barcode that is scanned multiple times throughout the process. This also enables an automatic online return of test results to the tested persons. Because STRIP-1 can work with very small volumes, it uses less of the materials that are currently very scarce across the world. The costs per test will also be much lower than current testing costs. Lastly, using STRIP-1 will relieve the laboratory personnel that was overloaded during the first wave in the spring of 2020.

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