Shenzen, China-based genomics and proteomics company BGI and its collaborator Etopia have rolled out a mobile, inflatable P2 level biosafety laboratory it has dubbed the “Huo-Yan Air Lab.” The first lab was installed recently at the Shenzhen National GeneBank and was developed in response to the need for countries to rapidly build-up screening and testing infrastructure in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Huo-Yan (meaning ‘Fire Eye’) Air Lab’s design uses a modular air dome structure. It can be transported by air as standard freight on any commercial passenger plane, and quickly constructed and deployed locally to support the screening and detection capabilities of countries around the world, thereby allowing authorities to control the pandemic at an earlier stage, according to Yin Ye, CEO of BGI Genomics.
Huo-Yan is based on BGI’s previous experience constructing a P3 level biosafety laboratory using an inflatable structure during the Ebola outbreak in 2014 in West Africa. The Air Lab consists of five major functional areas, including: sample collection, sample reception, sample prep, reagent prep, and amplification.
The Air Lab is equipped with auxiliary conversion space including air lock conversion, medical waste exhaust system and integrated bathroom, and is installed with Class II biological safety cabinets, automatic nucleic acid preparation instruments, qPCR instruments, antibody detection equipment, gene sequencers, high-performance servers and other COVID-19 virus nucleic acid detection equipment. The lab is designed with a fresh air system and High Efficiency Particulate Air Filter (HEPA) to independently filter and manage the air entering and exiting the air in each functional area. This ensures that the gases in each functional space do not contaminate each other, and at the same time guarantees that outward emissions are correctly and safely filtered to comply with relevant standards and guidelines for biological safety in gene amplification laboratories and virus detection laboratories.
“The Huo-Yan Air Lab fully meets the demands of global biosafety requirements and industry specifications,” says Yin Ye.
