Ayass BioScience Laboratory has become one of the largest testing facility for COVID-19 Coronavirus in the state of Texas.

Modern research has brought to light the importance of RNA’s (RiboNucleic Acid) role in the regulation of genetic material. COVID-19 is caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, an RNA virus. This means that the genetic material of the virus is encoded in RNA and not in DNA. Genomic analysis of positive RNA COVID-19 samples will greatly improve understanding of factors related to the severity of the coronavirus disease. While underlying conditions help explain why some become severely sick and others do not, identifying the different viral strains through RNA sequencing can contribute to a better understanding of how the virus has spread by providing data for epidemiological studies. Targeting viral RNA structures and functions or the proteins that they produce is the key to treating COVID-19, as it allows researchers to develop antiviral drugs, vaccines, and other therapeutics that disrupt the virus and stop infections. Our laboratory amplifies very low amounts of RNA, then enriches the coronavirus-specific sequence. This allows the genome to be analyzed in greater detail in order to develop and test therapeutics that directly target the RNA and processes critical to a virus’s life cycle.