COVID-19 Diagnosis in 20 Minutes... DGIST Supplies Reagents

COVID-19 Rapid Diagnostic Kit and Rapid Diagnostic Device

[Asia Economy Reporter Hwang Junho] Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST) will supply COVID-19 reagents produced domestically to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This is expected to greatly help SMEs struggling with reagent production due to increased demand from the COVID-19 pandemic and patients awaiting COVID-19 diagnosis.

DGIST's Core Protein Resource Center announced on the 9th that it will produce special COVID-19 diagnostic reagents and provide them to Mmonitor Co., Ltd., a company producing COVID-19 diagnostic kits. DGIST signed an agreement with the company on the 3rd and began reagent production.

Through this agreement, DGIST will mass-produce enzyme proteins for COVID-19 diagnostic kits for three months and supply them to Mmonitor Co., Ltd. The reagents supplied by DGIST are expected to account for about 30% of the company's production volume. DGIST plans to further increase the supply of reagents upon Mmonitor's request in the future.

When kits are made using reagents produced by DGIST, diagnosis can be performed on-site by simply maintaining the equipment temperature at 60℃. The diagnosis results can be obtained within 20 to 30 minutes. The cost of diagnostic equipment is also relatively low, under 1 million KRW.

The existing COVID-19 diagnostic method requires raising the equipment temperature to 90℃ and then lowering it to 60℃ repeatedly 40 times during the virus amplification process. Including preprocessing, diagnosis takes about 4 to 6 hours. High-cost RT-PCR equipment worth around 50 million KRW must be used to produce diagnostic reagents.

Jang Ik-su, head of DGIST's Core Protein Resource Center, stated, "We will fulfill our role not only in producing COVID-19 diagnostic reagents but also in producing and applying essential medical proteins such as cytokine proteins that require national-level management." Dr. Choi Sung-gyun, the research director for diagnostic reagent production, said, "We hope DGIST's research capabilities will become a pillar in overcoming COVID-19."

Jeon Hyo-sung, CEO of Mmonitor Co., Ltd., said, "Mmonitor was founded with the goal of developing molecular diagnostic technology that anyone can easily use, and based on our accumulated technology, we have released the current COVID-19 diagnostic product. Through cooperation with DGIST, we plan to leap forward as a global on-site molecular diagnostic company."

Jang Ik-su, Director of the Core Protein Center at DGIST, and Choi Sung-gyun, Researcher

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.