Peter Iwen, PhD, discussing helping fix the CDC's first COVID-19 test kits

21 February 2023

Peter Iwen: [T]he CDC got in big trouble, you probably remember reading it in the news, because of their test. It was too complicated to begin with. Second off, they didn't know what was wrong with it. So they came to us, the special pathogens lab at the CDC's directors called us up in a meeting to ask us for our help to find out what is wrong with their test. So we did some laboratory manipulations and told them, “You know, this is what we think is wrong with your tests.” And they corrected that, resubmitted it to the FDA to get emergency use authorization approval. And lo and behold, they had a test that worked. But that was pretty touchy for the CDC because they had everybody looking at them saying, “You blew it guys.” And some of those people no longer work in that lab [laughter] unfortunately. But we were part of that process. It was because we had a relationship with the CDC in the past and we knew their directors and they looked at us, said, “Hey, can you help us?” So it was fun, but that's what we did. And lo and behold, now a lot of labs can test for it, but—it's still something that we're dealing with.

From the McGoogan Health Sciences Library Special Collections and Archives