On Sept. 8, 2021, Bio-Techne and Carterra announced a clinical research collaboration studying COVID-19 variants. To assess immune responses to new variants and to plan for intervention mechanisms that avoid vaccine escape, scientists and epidemiologists need a fast and effective assay.

The partnership leveraged Carterra’s flagship analytical platform – the LSAﾮ – to characterize panels of SARS-CoV-2 spike and receptor-binding domain (RBD) variants in an information-rich assay. The SARS-CoV-2 variants were developed by Bio-Techne and used to fast-track the new, scalable assay for measuring the potential risks that new variants may evade the ability of the immune system to block the virus.