Kent’s School of Biosciences will support Kent hospitals to increase the number of COVID-19 tests that can be carried out each day.

Specialist molecular biology equipment will be loaned to boost the capacity in NHS labs to carry out more tests for COVID-19 and detect infected samples.

More than 30 academics, postdoctoral researchers and PhD students from the School have volunteered to help perform testing at hospitals in the county.

Professor Dan Mulvihill, Head of the School of Biosciences, said: ‘We are in a privileged position to help the NHS and offer resource to help fight this virus. Our volunteers will use their skills to work alongside NHS workers during this time of need and hope to make a difference.’

Dr Jill Shepherd, Programme Director for Biomedical Science within the School of Biosciences, said: ‘The first thing we wanted to do was to see how we could best support our NHS colleagues. It is a great opportunity for our academics, researchers and students to utilise their molecular biology skills to make a difference here and now.’

To see KMTV’s report on this go here.