Did you ever wonder how those swabs and tubes end up in the boxes and bags that you use to take a sample to test for COVID?

Well students in the Biomanufacturing club at Skyline College found out last Friday January 21, 2022. Drs. Jing Folsom and Nick Kapp working with the BioScope ATE Project Student Lead Jonathan Der and another 13 students voluntarily kitted over 1,000 COVID sampling bags.

Did you know that Kitting in logistics is the act of compiling multiple products into a single “kit” that is shipped to the customer? These kits need to be assembled in a clean/aseptic manner. That is why we used the Biology laboratory in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Division Building 7. Students sanitized the working benchtop, wore a lab coat and gloves to ensure the quality and cleanliness of our products. Each of the 1000 sampling kits contained a barcoded robotic sample tube, a sterile swab and a chart barcode that matches the robotic sample tube. The samples are set up so that a robot can process the sample making it possible for a company to quickly process thousands of samples. However, each sample must start out with a kit that is assembled by hand.

This is what it takes to test everyone so we can safely come back to school.

Special Thanks to our volunteers:

Mark Canlapan, Rosy Chan, Jonathan Der, Allison Galon, James Kraynik, Kaileiani Louie, Shirley Luong, Atlantis Ma, Kevin Recinos, Arian Villena, Chunyun Wang, Grace Xu, Valeria Zarco, Jonathan Zhang

The Skyline College Biomanufacturing program manufactures a number of items that are used in educational and health organizations. In this kitting project we are collaborating with local (Hayward) Biotech company Predicine. These particular sampling kits will go to first responders like fire and police departments as well as local schools. This work was done in conjunction with the Bioscope ATE grant. With this grant Skyline College acts as a contracted manufacturing group to make things like the COVID sampling kits, petri plates and other materials that go out to local schools and first responders.

Any student is welcome to come and be a part of the club.  We will train and explain what Biomanufacturing is. You will also get to meet new and exciting people. The biomanufacturing club meets every Friday in 7204 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. We hope to see you then.

We’re making more COVID sampling kits this Friday Jan 28 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. in the biology laboratory room 7-241. If you are interested in volunteering, please come by this Friday, you can stay as long as you want. Your time is highly appreciated.

Please email Dr. Nick kapp kapp@smccd.edu and/or Dr. Jing Folsom folsomj@smccd.edu if you have any questions.

Article & Photo by Jing Folsom