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While a significant portion of the population finds itself temporarily out of work, this is certainly not the case for researchers developing the tools to fight COVID-19. In Quebec, a team specializing in biochemistry got the green light to develop a new test to detect the coronavirus in a few minutes, a process which currently takes several hours.
Led by Denis Boudreau, a professor of chemistry at Université Laval, the group includes Jean-François Masson and Joelle Pelletier, two chemistry professors from Université de Montréal. Chinese researcher Qing Huang, who has notably worked on the detection of the Ebola virus, as well as a dozen other researchers and students, are also participating in the effort. The project is supported by $1-million grant over two years, drawn from a special rapid-response fund of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) dedicated to the fight against the pandemic.