On Apr. 14, 2020, the Jackson Laboratory (JAX) in collaboration with several Maine regional hospitals, announced additional coronavirus testing capacity for frontline health care workers and in-patients in the state of Maine.

JAX’s Connecticut-licensed CLIA and CAP accredited laboratory in Farmington, Connecticut tests patient samples for a specific RNA signature unique to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. As the COVID-19 pandemic evolved, JAX adopted advanced technologies and new assay platforms making these available to its partnering hospitals and health care facilities.

JAX’s expanded COVID-19 testing for our clinical partners in Maine builds upon the Laboratory’s recent collaborations with the Connecticut Department of Public Health and more than a dozen Connecticut-based hospitals and health care facilities, including UConn Health. JAX began COVID-19 testing on March 23 in its CLIA laboratory at The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine in Farmington, Connecticut and is currently testing 2,000 samples per week with plans to ramp up to 3,500 samples per week by mid-April. A key advantage to the JAX COVID-19 testing system is that it is calibrated to provide a short turn-around time. In this manner, information can be returned to the hospitals quickly.