A patent application entitled “Detection and mutational analysis of an RNA virus in an environmental sample” was filed by the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens with the support of Archimedes Center for Research, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship.

 NKUA’s interdisciplinary inventors’ team by A. Scorilas, M. Avgeris, N.  Thomaidis, N. Voulgaris, and  P. Adamopoulos have developed novel  molecular assays for the detection, mutational analysis and  quantification of SARS-CoV-2 mutational variants in wastewater samples.

 These assays agree with COVID-19 patients’ sequencing data, and increase detection specificity, identify previously unknown SARS-CoV-2 mutations, and quantify mutational variants.