MADURAI: The Viral Research and Diagnostic Laboratory (VRDL) at Madurai Medical College, on Monday, tested a record 4,000 samples in 24 hours. Till date, the laboratory has tested around 1.07 lakh samples.
Head of VRDL, Dr C Sugumari, said that the laboratory is now equipped with five RT-PCR machines, four of which were donated by Madurai Kamaraj University, Rotary Madurai West, Multi-disciplinary Research Unit at Government Rajaji Hospital and Tamil Nadu Foundation (donated on Monday).
"Besides, the laboratory recently received two automated RNA extractors," she said.
"The ability to conduct higher number of tests at one go could be boosted due to automated RNA extractors. While it takes nearly 2.5 hours to extract RNA of 95 samples manually, it will only take 90 minutes to extract RNA from 95 samples now.
Equipped with two automated RNA extractors, 190 samples could be extracted at one go. Simultaneously, manual extraction is also being conducted," she added.