Step 2: RNA extraction and RT-qPCR v1

STRIP is a start-to-end streamlined and automated procedure for COVID-19 testing, centering on a single Tecan Fluent liquid-handling robot that can process over 14,000 samples per day. Key features of the customized Tecan Fluent robot are (1) on-board 1D and 2D barcode scanners, (2) an automated tube decapper, (3) two robotic arms for simultaneous processing of different procedural steps, (4) a newly-designed spin vessel to keep magnetic beads in solution and immediately transferable to 384-well plates, (5) a built-in magnetic deck and a 384-channel pipetting head for rapid RNA isolation, (6) a heating device for fast drying of RNA prior to elution, (7) a built-in plate sealer and (8) a plate storage system to allow processing of multiple sample plates in a single run (See Materials). Here we describe the RNA extraction and RT-qPCR protocol as currently applied in STRIP.