A robotic pop-up lab, to be directed by molecular and cell biology professor Jennifer Doudna, co-inventor of the CRISPR gene editing technology, is ramping up to provide critically needed COVID-19 coronavirus testing on the Berkeley campus, as early as next week. With academic and industry researchers collaborating on the project, the 2,500-square-foot laboratory will serve the Bay Area, processing more than 1,000 samples a day. Later, if the need is there, they hope to be able to process 3,000 a day. "When the pandemic hit and the range of infections went as high as it did, we realized there is a skill that we have that can be rapidly repurposed for the national good," says molecular and cell biology professor Fydor Urnov, director of technology at Berkeley's Innovative Genomics Institute. "Where the robots come in is taking the best tools available today and not relying on what's being traditionally done. ... Taking one patient sample and running it through the system will take four hours, but that is not useful. The question is how long can you turn around a thousand," he adds. Link to video. For more on this, see our press release at Berkeley News. Stories on this topic have appeared in dozens of sources, including the San Francisco Chronicle (1), San Francisco Chronicle (2), Medgadget, BioSpace, Robot Report, NBC Bay Area Online, Fox 40 Sacramento (link to video), and KPIX TV (link to video). Professor Doudna was interviewed on PBS's Amanpour & Co. (link to video) and CNN (link to transcript).