Tim Krämer is a medical student in the 6th semester at the University of Bonn. Since December 2020 Tim works as medical doctoral candidate in the COVID-19 lab of the Institute of Innate Immunity under supervision of Prof. Dr. Eicke Latz and Dr. Susanne V. Schmidt. His experimental medical doctoral dissertation focuses on the development on a test method to detect active SARS-CoV-2 infections already in early stages by using gargle solutions. It is evisioned that such a test could be used to help in the control of infection events in the current pandemic situation for example in schools and kindergardens. The aim of his thesis is to generate a simple, sensitive and resource-saving test which is suitable for mass-screening of big test cohorts and also can represent an alternative method to the conventional invasive swab tests. To approach this novel test method, Tim uses highly sensitive immunoassays on platforms like the Simoa HD-X and Meso to detect SARS-CoV-2 Nucleocapsid protein (N-protein) in gargling solutions and compares the results with results from state of the art techniques like Ct values from PCR from throat swab-based tests to gain intel on the sensitivity of gargling solution-based tests.
