UMass Chan researching at-home COVID tests for RADx initiative

Photo | Grant Welker UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester

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By Sloane M. Perron

UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester, supported by the National Institutes of Health Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics initiative, is in the research process of bringing over-the-counter home COVID-19 tests to the general market, according to a Wednesday press release.

These studies led by RADx Tech Clinical Studies Core will answer questions among regulators about tradeoffs in speed of results, affordability, convenience, and the accuracy between rapid home antigen tests and the more costly, time-consuming PCR molecular tests, per UMass Chan’s release.

“If you have the ability to do rapid tests in the community at large, in people who are asymptomatic, you can detect infections and resolve things quickly, without shutting everything down,” said Nathaniel Hafer, assistant professor of molecular medicine at UMass Chan and lead investigator of the RADx Tech Clinical Studies Core Logistics Team.

The RADx initiative partners with federal agencies, such as the federal Office of the Assistant Secretary of Health, the U.S. Department of Defense, the federal Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, and the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, according to the announcement.