As scientists boost their efforts in the global battle against Covid-19, a Malaysian is part of the brightest and most brilliant who are making quite an impact.
Malaysian PhD student, 26-year-old Lim Boon Chuan is part of the team at the University of Oxford’s Engineering Science Departments and the Oxford Suzhou Centre for Advanced Research (OSCAR) who were behind the development of a rapid testing technology for Covid-19.
The Public Service Department (PSD) scholarship holder is studying synthetic biology at the university, as according to New Straits Times.
“We can use a single temperature, which is 65°C for half an hour to see the results,” said Lim, adding that the new technology produced results faster and could potentially be used in any household.
Lim has won several awards including the 3rd prize at the 2018 Chief Data International Big Data Forum & Competition for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
“Our goal is to design and produce something that can be sent to households, so people should be able to do the testing at home easily and fast without going to a diagnostic centre or to a hospital,” he added.
Lim, who is from Kuala Lumpur, got involved with the project just last month when the coronavirus was raging in China and there were few cases elsewhere in the world. He designed and ran all the experiments.
If it all goes well, Lim and his team will keep working on to develop an integrated device so that the tests can also be used at clinics and airports.
It’s refreshing to see that not only so many brave and smart Malaysians are battling this virus on front lines.
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Also read: China’s Covid-19 Post-Mortem Reports Show That Virus Can Stay In Lungs Despite Death
