Over 30,000 swabs tested from 2 April, working 7 days a week. About 120 staff at work, including professors, researchers, postdocs, doctoral students and technical-administrative staff. One million euro of University funds, allocated by the Board of Directors, for the most art to pay for the necessary materials.
This considerable effort by the University of Trento for the local community in the past weeks, during the Covid-19 emergency, was coordinated by the operational unit of Microbiology and Virology of Santa Chiara Hospital in Trento.
The University, with the direct involvement of the staff of the Department of Cellular, Computational and Integrative Biology (Cibio), set up an emergency laboratory at Polo Ferrari in Povo, which worked side by side with the Provincial Healthcare Service for over 50 days testing swabs from the region, and produced in-house the reagents that were so hard to find because they were in high demand.
Thanks to the work of the University of Trento and of the Laboratory of advanced molecular diagnostics, on some days a record number of tests were performed in relation to the resident population.
A delegation of the Provincial government visited the laboratories of the University at Polo Ferrari in Povo as a sign of gratitude.
The delegation, which included the President of the Autonomous Province of Trento, Maurizio Fugatti, councillors Achille Spinelli and Stefania Segnana, and Laura Pedron, Head of the Employment Service, met with Rector Paolo Collini, the director of Cibio, Alessandro Quattrone and virologist Massimo Pizzato.
The guests were joined by two representatives of the Provincial Healthcare Service with which the University collaborated in these weeks: director general Paolo Bordon and the director of the clinical pathology unit Patrizio Caciagli.
In addition to testing, the University of Trento through its Cibio Department has also been conducting research into a vaccine which may be tested on humans by the end of the year.
The press release includes further information and the comments of Rector Paolo Collini, the President of the Autonomous Province of Trento Maurizio Fugatti and the director general of the Provincial Healthcare Service Paolo Bordon.