Industrial conglomerate 3M Company is partnering with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to develop a cheaper, quicker COVID-19 test.
Right now, test results can take anywhere from a few hours to a week. Quest Diagnostics, for instance, said the average turnaround time at its labs is currently seven days.
3M's new test would function more like a pregnancy strip, a rapid paper-based test that could be mass-produced and quickly distributed at the point of care.
"In terms of patient experience, what we're looking to do is create that low-cost, highly-accurate, simple-to-use test that would be accessible to a lot of people," Dr. John Banovetz, chief technology officer for 3M, told Cheddar.
The antigen-based test, which looks at proteins on the virus, would offer a "preliminary view" of a patient's coronavirus status — though ideally, patients would follow up with a doctor, he added.
"Our goal would be a point-of-care test, so maybe it's taken in a doctor's office. Maybe you pick it up at the pharmacy," Banovetz said.
The goal is to start producing tests by the end of summer or early fall. Once manufacturing is rolling, 3M could produce millions of tests per day, according to the company.
As cases surge across the country and many anticipate a second wave in states where the infection rate has dropped off, calls for more testing are growing.
More than 41 million tests have been reported to the CDC, with a 9 percent positivity rate, but the U.S. continues to lag behind other countries by some measures.
In the meantime, the Trump administration is relying on the private sector to meet the demand for tests, putting pressure on companies such as 3M to come up with a solution.
"We're going as quick as we can right now," he said. "Our focus is trying to get that accuracy up and in a way that we know that we can mass-produce it. That's really where 3M can help contribute to this, our ability to be able to commercialize and bring to market new ideas and innovations."
Catching you up on what you need to know on April 26, 2022, with Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter for $44 billion, Russia warning of a possible threat of World War III, the FDA approving a COVID treatment for children under 12, and more.
Plastic pollution is a problem that experts say is only getting worse. One organization is looking to change that. Activists want to save the beauty of our oceans, with the beauty of art. Brad Parks, conservation education director of the Washed Ashore project, joins Cheddar News to discuss.
The federal mask mandate for planes and other public transportation has been grounded. A federal judge in Florida struck down the nationwide requirement saying it exceeds health officials' authority. Dr. Sampson Davis, emergency medicine physician, joins Cheddar News to discuss.
UPSIDE foods, a company that makes cultivated meat products, recently raised $400 million in a Series C round.
UPSIDE says it's developing a way to grow real meat, poultry, and seafood, without the need to raise animals for human consumption. It's a process that gets the attention of some big-name backers, including Bill Gates and Richard Branson. Dr. Uma Valeti, Founder and CEO of UPSIDE Foods, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Catching you up on what you need to know on April 25, 2022, with Secretary of State Blinken and Defense Secretary Austin visiting Ukraine, Emmanuel Macron is reelected as president of France, Twitter is talking to Elon Musk about his purchase bid, and more.
An increasing number of countries are recognizing "Rights of Nature", a legal movement that says ecosystems and species have basic rights to exist and flourish. Grant Wilson, executive director at Earth Law Center joins Cheddar News to explain what the movement is aiming to achieve.
Removing carbon from our atmosphere has become a goal for scientists and entrepreneurs around the world, and while many have begun to develop promising technology solutions, a few big names in tech, including Stripe, Alphabet, Shopify, Meta and McKinsey, are committing nearly $1 billion dollars to fund carbon removal technology through 2030 through a new initiative called Frontier, an advanced market commitment to incentive following through on development. Hannah Bebbington, the head of strategy for Frontier, joined Cheddar News to discuss. "What Frontier aims to do is help get this market on track by sending that strong demand signal such that we can scale up capacity really significantly in the next couple of years," she said.
Autumn Peltier, an indigenous water activist, joined Cheddar News to talk about the lack of access to clean water among indigenous communities in Canada. “I say the government to hold themselves accountable for the promises that they make because Canada and indigenous people have a long history of broken promises and they still continue to this day to keep breaking promises with the nation's people," she said. "Less talk and more action is very much expected from me."
Jonah Goldman, the managing director at Bill Gates-founded Breakthrough Energy, joined Cheddar News to talk about the promising growth in the climate change-conscious investments the organization has made over the years. ”I mean when we're looking at some of the hard to abate technologies and cement and steel and aviation fuel, all of those have promising pathways that weren't there again just a few years ago," he said. "We invest across all of the technology areas that are driving emissions, greenhouse gas emissions and there really are exciting products and technologies coming out in almost every one of those sectors.”
Robert Bonnie, farm production and conservation undersecretary for the USDA, spoke to Cheddar about climate-smart strategies to help farmers reduce carbon emissions from agriculture. "We share the costs of installing those practices on their lands in ways that will protect the climate and maintain agricultural productivity, and we're also partnering with farmers to draw in private investment in greenhouse gas emissions reductions provided by agriculture and forestry," he said. The hope is to get farmers and ranchers to produce climate-smart commodities to lessen the impact of climate change.
