Shining a light on COVID-19 testing

In 2018, Thermo Fisher Scientific installed the very first Herasafe™ 2030i Biological Safety Cabinet (BSC) at Bruntwood SciTech’s Alderley Park – the UK’s largest, single site life science campus set in 400 acres of parkland in the North of England. This was the start of a remarkable relationship between the two organizations.

As the Covid-19 pandemic spread across the globe in early 2020, Alderley Park contacted Arfan Nazir, the account manager for Thermo Fisher Scientific, one Sunday morning and asked for a large number of BSCs to be delivered as soon as possible. Alderley Park had been selected to set up one of the UK Government’s three national Lighthouse Labs. These mega-labs would become crucial to support the UK government’s ramp up of testing for coronavirus and BSCs would be critical to the safety of laboratory personnel. Forming part of the largest network of diagnostic testing facilities in British history this lab would test samples from test sites across the country. From the initial request from the UK government, the team at Alderley Park was able to complete the laboratory in time to test the first samples three weeks later.

This request required several parts of the Thermo Fisher Scientific organisation to work together to meet Alderley Park’s deadline for commissioning. The BSCs were produced at the world-class Thermo Fisher Scientific manufacturing facility in Langenselbold, Germany and the installation was completed in less than three weeks from the order being placed. This was supplemented with a second order for additional BSCs as the testing capacity increased across the UK. Once delivery had been made Unity Lab Services stepped in and installed and commissioned every unit to ensure that testing could commence as quickly and safely as possible whilst meeting the capacity requirements of the UK government.

The success of this project was only possible by having a continued collaborative effort between Bruntwood SciTech and Thermo Fisher Scientific including an acute attention to detail and the support of a wide number of individuals across both businesses resulting in over 1 million samples being tested since the opening of this impressive mega-lab.

This collaboration also extended far beyond BSC installations as additional products from the Thermo Scientific portfolio, such as the KingFisher™ and Multidrop™ Combi, are used widely within Alderley Park showing that we have a truly united approach in making the world healthier, cleaner and safer.

Learn more about Thermo Scientific™ biological safety cabinets