Porvair supplies filters for COVID-19 test

Porvair Sciences is supplying Vyon porous plastic filters to University of Cambridge spinout company, Diagnostics for the Real World, for its Samba II machine that provides diagnosis of COVID-19 infection in under 90 minutes.

The Samba II machine looks for traces of genetic material belonging to the virus, amplifies it billions of times chemically and therefore can provide extremely sensitive detection of active infections. Samba II is a fully automated machine, performing sample preparation, extraction, amplification and detection.

Alan Hughes - porous plastics accounts manager for Porvair Sciences said: "We are delighted to be able to play a small part in the development of a machine that can be routinely used by healthcare workers at point-of-care in order to rapidly diagnose patients with COVID-19.

“Porvair Sciences was chosen as the filter supplier for the Samba II sample preparation cartridge because Vyon porous plastics are made from clean, regulatory controlled materials and manufactured using no release agent, therefore are completely free from contaminants. In addition, the tortuous path of our proprietary Vyon porous plastic materials ensures unmatched sample clean-up eliminating the chance of breakthrough of even tiny particles that could interfere with the diagnostic equipment and analysis.”

Vyon can be modified give hydrophilic or hydrophobic properties, or enhanced to achieve specific chemical and biochemical separations. Vyon can also be combined with other materials to create a composite product.