COVID-19 knows no borders. Neither should understanding the basis of COVID-19 tests.

A cooperative effort from biochemists around the world explains in different languages how testing for viral genetic material is used to diagnose COVID-19
COVID-19 knows no borders.  Neither should understanding the basis of COVID-19 tests.
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When the IUBMB’s Student Ambassador, graduate student Brianna Bibel, posted an explanation of how the Covid-19 test works, her lab mate, Kate Meze, suggested she could translate the post into Slovenian, as she was certain that educators and students in her home country would benefit from the translation.  This prompted Bri and IUBMB President-elect Alexandra Newton to use the IUBMB twitter site to ask for volunteers to translate into additional languages.  They immediately received an outpouring of responses from students and faculty around the world volunteering to translate the post.  Bri has worked with undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and professors to translate into 30 languages, spoken on every continent, with more in the works.  

 “I'm so incredibly humbled and grateful for the outpouring of volunteers translating my infographics on COVID-19 testing. I never in my wildest dreams would've thought I could have a global impact and it gives me such a sense of purpose in these hard times.”

Bri is known on social media as The Bumbling Biochemist, and you can read more about her here:

 https://www.cshl.edu/labdish/the-world-of-brianna-bibel-the-bumbling-biochemist/

Bri has created a resource page on The Bumbling Biochemist website where one can choose the level of detail for the post (long, medium, or short), as well as the language.  

 https://bit.ly/covid19bbresources

The graphics and explanations are an invaluable teaching resource not only for biochemistry students around the world, but for anyone interested in how the test for Covid-19 works.

This has been a truly global effort uniting biochemists around the world, and we hope it can lead to future international collaborative efforts in biochemistry education.  

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Go to the profile of Angel Herráez
about 4 years ago

Congratulations, Bri and IUBMB!

Go to the profile of Angel Herráez
almost 4 years ago

30 languages and counting! Extraordinary!