Chinese 'Fire Eye' helps Serbia detect coronavirus

BUILDING LAB IN 5 DAYS

BGI-developed Fire Eye Lab had been used in Wuhan, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in China.

The "Fire Eye" was named after a Chinese fable about Monkey King, who could spot devils in disguise with the "pupil of the eye."

According to BGI, the Fire Eye, a nucleic acid testing lab, is a robot that extracts nucleic acid automatically, 10 times faster than a lab operator and with a smaller margin of error.

It uses a barcode marking of samples, in order to eliminate mistakes, and it has a biosafety level P2 or BSL-2, meaning that its precautions include limited access, specific training in handling pathogens, negative air pressure isolating the lab from its surroundings and other measures.

The lab in the Serbian capital emerged with miraculous speed. An agreement was signed at a virtual ceremony on April 12, and three days later, the equipment arrived from China. On April 20, Chinese experts started training their Serbian colleagues to work on the equipment.

"From the arrival of equipment on April 15 to the opening on April 20, we built this lab in merely 5 days," Xiong Tao, vice president of BGI Global Development, told Xinhua.

Dr Ana Djordjevic, from the Institute for Biological Research "Sinisa Stankovic", told Xinhua: "This is very important for Serbia because before we haven't had a lab with these technical possibilities ... It's not only the first lab of its kind in Serbia, but in the whole Balkan region."