Yang Berbahagia Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Dr. Noor Hisham Abudllah and YB Tuan Khairy Jamaluddin
ImmuSAFE is the world’s first lab-based, multi-antigen and multi-domain COVID-19 serology test, developed between MARii, IMR and Sengenics where allows quantitative testing of the prevalence of protective antibodies against COVID-19. The test made by ImmuSAFE has a sensitivity and specificity of 100% – and has been validated by the IMR, the biomedical research arm of the Ministry of Health (MOH).
The ImmuSAFE COVID+ Biochip Test has been enhanced for the efficiency of sample preparation by The Malaysia Automotive, Robotics and IOT Institute (MARii) and the Institute for Medical Research (IMR) in the IMR’s laboratories located at Setia Alam, Selangor.
Minister of Health, YB Khairy Jamaluddin attended the briefing by MARii CEO, Dato’ Madani Sahari on the MARii ImmuSAFE Smart Automation Line (SAL), during his visit to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on 29th November 2021. As In March 2021, MARii announced that it will be collaborating with the ministry on longitudinal studies to observe and determine the ability of individuals to retain protective antibodies in their immune system.
“Many of the technologies and design approaches used to improve the ImmuSAFE process came from the principles utilised in the mobility sector, an important focus of MARii. We are extremely happy that the same approaches have been utilised today in the bio-medical sector, and we hope more sectors can benefit from the numerous technologies developed through MARii and MITI, our parent ministry”, said Dato’ Madani Sahari, MARii CEO.
By improving the ImmuSAFE sample preparation process by the utilisation of autonomous robots, intelligent monitoring systems, big data analytics were developed through MARii. With the improvement made, speed and accuracy of liquid handling during incubation, dilution, washing, and scanning of samples were drastically improve – which are essential components of the test that have been subject to bottlenecks in previous versions of the process.
