[Lfm] CoVID-19

[Alex Gould]

Dear LFM,

Forgive the mass email but several of you have asked me how you might be able to help re PCR volunteers for Public Health England - who appear to be swamped by individual emails right now. Peter Ratcliffe at the Crick has therefore kindly agreed to add LFM folk to our collated list of volunteers. So, if you would like to volunteer and have PCR skills, please email Harriet Taylor (Harriet.Taylor at crick.ac.uk<mailto:Harriet.Taylor at crick.ac.uk>) by tomorrow with answers to the five requested bullet points, as per instructions below.

Thanks so much everyone,

Alex Gould


You may have seen an emails circulating from Public Health England and a number of NHS diagnostic laboratory asking for volunteers to work in their laboratories to assist in the massive scale up in diagnostic testing that will be required as part of measures to combat Covid19. The view of Crick leadership is that we should do our best to help, notwithstanding that this is an individual decision, and that both yourself as PI and the group member doing the work would need to be comfortable with.

To that we would be grateful if you could consult with your group and provide a list of any who would wish to volunteer in this way. As you may imagine there are all sorts of uncertainties that remain to be resolved, but the current position is broadly as follows:


  *   The major current diagnostic bottleneck is PCR, therefore this call is for those competent in PCR methods – the NHS will be operating at clinical diagnostic standards and will of course provide training where needed



  *   Many Crick laboratories could probably manage some secondment of lab members to diagnostic labs, so for instance a lab member could volunteer for 2 sessions per week (2 x 4hr) and still keep other Crick lab work going



  *   There should not be major safety issues (virus should be sterilized prior to all procedures), but those that government has defined vulnerable groups should not volunteer (this would be in line with directions to those groups about home working)



  *   There are a number of NHS laboratories which have indicated a need, so once we have a list of those who are interested, we will work to provide the most straightforward and protected (travel and other) arrangements – including compensating any expenses which you might incur



To enable us to plan  this initiative further could you respond to this email (Harriet.Taylor at crick.ac.uk<mailto:Harriet.Taylor at crick.ac.uk>) indicating:


  *   The group member and their e-mail
  *   The number of sessions they would ideally be prepared to commit to
  *   The maximum number of sessions to which they could commit
  *   Home post code (in case of use for travel logistics)
  *   One or two sentences with your actual expertise in this area


(One session = 4 hr)

As things are moving quite quickly it would be good to have your responses by the end of tomorrow. Could you reply to.....

Thank you and good wishes
Harriet Taylor on behalf of


Peter Ratcliffe Sam Barrell Paul Nurse

************************

Alex P. Gould PhD FMedSci,
Senior Group Leader,
Wellcome Trust Investigator,
The Francis Crick Institute,
1 Midland Road,
London NW1 1AT
UK

(courier deliveries: The Francis Crick Institute, 1 Brill Place, London NW1 1BF. UK)

Phone: +44 (0)20 37961452

Lab Administrator:
Anika Tailor
anika.tailor at crick.ac.uk<mailto:anika.tailor at crick.ac.uk>
Phone: +442037965330

http://www.agouldlab.com
http://www.crick.ac.uk/alex-gould


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The Francis Crick Institute Limited is a registered charity in England and Wales no. 1140062 and a company registered in England and Wales no. 06885462, with its registered office at 1 Midland Road London NW1 1AT
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