From nostril swab to COVID test result: The unseen work of our laboratories

+Print Archive
News

From nostril swab to COVID test result: The unseen work of our laboratories

Fiona Cassie

Fiona Cassie

PCR tubes
Nucleic acids must be extracted from cells in a sample 

Fiona Cassie wanted to know what happens to the thousands of nasal swabs that are sent away for analysis each day. The Southern Community Laboratories experts who answered her questions are clinical microbiologist Arlo Upton, molecular pathology department head Jenny Grant and clinical microbiologist James Ussher

What happens when the swab sample arrives at the laboratory?, The lab staff, using a biological safety cabinet, place the sample into another tube with a lysis buffer solution used to break open the cells in the