The country’s first hospital version of the Fire Eye, or Huoyan, laboratory is being built in Shenzhen No. 3 People’s Hospital, Shenzhen Special Zone Daily reported Saturday.
The lab, jointly built by Shenzhen No. 3 People’s Hospital and BGI, a Shenzhen-based genomics company, is designed to be an automatic molecular detection platform for infectious diseases in a bid to promote a fast diagnosis of pathogenic microorganisms.
Traditional nucleic acid test requires medical workers to take out samples from collection tubes, which includes a series of operations such as opening and closing lids and replacing various liquids.
The manual procedure not only reduces test efficiency but also poses a risk of infection.
The new Fire Eye lab can instead conduct the whole procedure in a closed system in which a total of 192 samples can be automatically packed in 40 minutes.
Moreover, with the help of the lab, results of 192 nucleic acid test samples can come out in four to six hours.
Approximately 7,000 samples can be automatically and accurately packed in 24 hours, laying a solid foundation for large scale nucleic acid testing.
In another development, the country’s first Integrated Core Lab was launched in Shenzhen No. 3 People’s Hospital on Friday.
In the future, patients in the hospital only need to have 3 milliliters of blood taken for 157 test items.
Related reports will be available in 2.5 hours, a 40 percent reduction in wait time.
With the lab, testing capability at the hospital will be greatly improved. They are able to conduct more than 240 types of biochemical tests and immunoassay to better meet the needs of their patients.