MeI wonder what happens with a 53 x 8 foot trailer. Mobile labs at the University of Illinois are scattered throughout the country and can handle up to 10,000 COVID-19 tests per day, often taking less than 12 hours. Test medium? A vial of saliva, not a nasal swab.
Universities sell rapid tests to businesses, schools, and other organizations around the world. This has proven to be a fruitful business model, and early in the COVID crisis would not have been possible without the work of researchers at the University of Urbana-Champaign. In the spring of 2020, they began developing a test-and-trace system called Shield with saliva-based PCR testing and data infrastructure, tracking results and monitoring outbreaks. They were ready for the test in six weeks and were in time for the return of 50,000 college students at the end of the summer.
It turned out to be just one of the possibilities of the shield market. As the pandemic intensifies, so does the need for rapid testing. Scientists at the University of Illinois designed a saliva-based test because supply chain issues made it difficult to obtain materials for the nasal swab test. Current studies suggest that this approach may be effective for early detection, especially when using Omicron variants.
The Shield Test may prove to be the most important innovation born of the university since Mosaic, a web browser created by Mark L. Andreessen and Eric J. Vina of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. .. When released in 1993, Mosaic helped popularize online browsing. Andreessen later went to California, where he built the highly successful Netscape Navigator.
But this time, the university wasn’t too quick to let go of the potentially groundbreaking product. In addition to establishing the non-profit Shield Illinois to spread the test to schools and businesses throughout the state, the university established the Chicago and Urbana-based for-profit company Shield T3 to sell tests beyond Illinois. .. Last year, the effort generated $ 64 million in revenue for the university, says Bill Jackson, chief executive of Shield T3 and a former senior official at Johnson Controls, a multinational company that manufactures HVAC and fire protection equipment. “This is a viable business,” adds Timothy L. Killeen, President of the University of Illinois.
The Shield T3 Origin Story is a parallel sprint story. In early 2020, Jackson, who runs the University’s high-tech incubator Discovery Partners Institute, and others to help the Illinois Public Health Department enhance state-wide COVID testing even before university saliva. A small brigade of American leaders was utilized. There was a base test. When U. of I. chemists, biologists, epidemics, physicists, and engineers were competing to build a shield test-and-trace system, Jackson and university managers took a 30,000-foot perspective. , Commercial activities from the original mission of ensuring the safety of non-profit organizations and campuses in June.
In August 2020, Shield T3 set up its first lab and hired full-time employees. Jackson immediately says, “I called 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.” I talked to India, it must have been 15 times. England. new Zealand. Indonesia, Jamaica. Here and there … I’m always talking about this. Since then, the Shield T3 has signed contracts with more than 150 companies and organizations, including Toyota, Baltimore City Public Schools, the Filipino Red Cross, and the New Zealand company Rako Science. To serve the ever-growing roster and reduce travel time, we have dispatched six mobile labs to California, Wisconsin, Kentucky, and Maine, and set up labs in buildings in Wisconsin and Texas.
Bloom Energy, a green energy company based in San Jose, California, was the first customer of the Shield T3 to sign on in December 2020. “We haven’t lost a day [of work] To COVID, “says Sridhar, an alum at the University of Illinois. “With rapid testing, there’s more than a few.” Shield T3 has set up a mobile lab in Bloom’s parking lot and used that facility to serve several schools and other businesses in the area. I am.
It is becoming increasingly clear that shield tests have uses other than COVID. Saliva testing can ultimately become a powerful diagnostic weapon for many health problems. Jackson says it can be used to screen for respiratory infections such as influenza and respiratory syncytial virus “in one go” and ultimately to identify oral cancer and cerebral agitation.
Unlike Mosaic, the saliva testing business remains within the U. of I., but the intellectual property behind the testing is widely shared with other universities. Yale University and Rutgers University have developed their own saliva tests before the United States, but have spun out to private companies. “The reason Illinois University didn’t do that was because it had as much a social mission as an economic one,” says Jackson.
According to Jackson, private companies often charge more than $ 70 for testing. Shield T3 charges businesses $ 30 to $ 35, while universities and non-governmental organizations pay $ 25. “What college leadership didn’t want to achieve was people trying to make money behind COVID without doing the right thing socially. It’s more testing at low cost and high turnaround. I received it, “says Jackson.
But is that the most effective approach? Anthony Rossasso, an economist at DePaul University who is doing research focused on health and labor economics, is wondering. “If it was handled by a private company that specializes in this, could this have a much greater reach and market impact?” He asks. LoSasso predicts how the Shield T3 will work. “It wouldn’t surprise one Iota to see the University of Illinois sell the entire company to a commercial lab company later next year.”
This is a scenario not excluded by the President of the University of Illinois. “It can be spun out,” says Killeen.[but] I don’t want to see it spin out in a way that turns into something that has nothing to do with the public interest. “
Spit Equity-Chicago Magazine
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