New research, robotics and grant funding is helping to accelerate coronavirus research at UNC.

A $433,000 grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, also called the CZI, will fund a robotic arm as UNC researchers work towards a COVID-19 vaccine. 

According to the university, more lives may be saved with this new technology that can process lab specimens safer and 20 times faster than humans.

The grant covers the purchase of a “liquid handler,” which UNC describes as a robotic arm that can pipette fluids much more quickly and accurately than humans can. The grant also will purchase supporting instruments, including another robot that detects active virus particles in samples and a machine to sequence RNA. 

(Ralph Baric, Ph.D., in his lab at the Gillings School of Global Public Health. Photo courtesy of UNC.)

The equipment will go to the lab of Dr. Ralph Baric, a Distinguished Professor of epidemiology at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. Researchers in the Baric Lab are on the forefront of developing COVID-19 treatments.

Robotics will accelerate COVID-19 research underway from Ralph Baric as they continue to study and develop remdesivir, the only approved treatment for COVID-19.

To learn more about the technology grant that comes from CZI, an education, science and policy philanthropy founded by Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Patricia Chan, visit UNC’s website.

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