The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an emergency use authorization for the first COVID-19 all-in-one test kit, a product developed by UC Berkeley alumni Deb Mitra and John Waldeisen, the cofounders of Lucira Health. Mitra and Waldeisen earned their doctorates from Berkeley’s Department of Bioengineering and while on campus founded Lucira Health, which was part of QB3-Berkeley’s incubator program, the QB3 Garage@Berkeley, and utilized facilities at the Biomolecular Nanotechnology Center.
The molecular self-testing kit is intended to detect the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19, paving a potential path for more widespread testing outside of health care settings. Read more about the Lucira test kit in the FDA press release here.