SNBTS Nucleic Acid Extraction System

The Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service (SNBTS), part of NHS National Services Scotland (NHS NSS) (“Health Board”) are commencing a Procurement Exercise for a new nucleic acid extraction system, based at the Jack Copland Centre, Edinburgh. This would be used to perform confirmatory Nucleic Acid Testing (NAT) testing on all blood, tissue and cell donations that are reactive in the initial screening assays. The National Microbiology Reference Unit (NMRU) also performs NAT screening on any blood, tissue and cell donations that fail, or are not suitable for NAT testing, on the automated Donor Testing platforms.