Glasgow Lighthouse Lab facility begins processing samples for COVID-19

The Lighthouse Laboratory in Glasgow - a major new COVID-19 testing facility based in Scotland - is now operational. The Lighthouse Lab, which officially started testing samples for COVID-19 this week, is part of what will be the biggest network of diagnostic testing facilities in British history, alongside other Lighthouse Lab sites in Milton Keynes and Alderley Park, which were opened in recent days. The newly operational lab will will test samples from the regional test centres where NHS staff and frontline workers with suspected COVID-19 infections are tested. It is hoped the lab will quickly move towards processing several thousand tests per day, before scaling up further to tens of thousands of tests per day. The Lighthouse Lab in Glasgow is hosted by the University of Glasgow at their Queen Elizabeth University Hospital Campus, and opened in collaboration with the Scottish Government, industry experts from BioAscent and the University of Dundee, and the Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute. The Lighthouse Labs are being established across the UK to analyse samples taken from regional testing centres. Key worker testing will be carried out at drive-through facilities before samples are assigned and delivered to the closest Lighthouse Lab with capacity.