About the LSTC

Mission Statement

The Life Sciences Testing Center (LSTC) at Northeastern University aims to advance pandemic preparedness through research, training, and global partnerships, and develop effective strategies for bio-surveillance and workforce training to protect public health and empower communities, with a focus on collaboration, diversity, and innovation.

Scope of Service

The Life Sciences Testing Center (LSTC) was founded in July of 2020 to meet the testing needs of Northeastern’s ambitious reopening plan, by providing regular and accessible testing to the Northeastern community. With a turnaround time of 12-48 hours, the LSTC was quickly established as a leader among testing facilities for our high testing quality and speed of resulting. As the nature of the pandemic landscape has changed since 2020, so too has the lab’s approach, adapting to partner with Ginkgo Bioworks and ThermoFisher Scientific to provide K-12 testing, back-to-work surveillance screening, pooled airport testing and environmental aerosol monitoring.

As of June 2023, the laboratory’s clinical scope of service includes SARS-CoV-2 testing and multiplex influenza A/B and SARS-CoV-2 testing. Our operating hours are from 9 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday.  To read more about the Life Sciences Testing Center in the news, visit Northeastern Global News for feature stories and highlights of the COVID-19 research effort at Northeastern.

The LSTC shares staff, resources, and equipment with the Biopharmaceutical Training Analysis Laboratory (BATL), directed by Jared Auclair. Drawing on the combined laboratory expertise, collaborative partnerships, and industry connections, the LSTC is uniquely positioned at the intersections of clinical validation, research and development, industry implementation, and world-class education.

BATL is the only source for a one-place partnership focused on collaborations that unite various scientific stakeholders across the globe with unique offerings to meet the needs of multiple and diverse scientific and medical stakeholders, including early discovery and development in industry, experiential training, global regulatory convergence, and use-inspired research. BATL is proudly recognized by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the International Council for Harmonisation (ICH), the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), and the World Health Organization (WHO) as a neutral, global facilitator of collaboration between academia, industry, and government toward regulatory convergence.

Our Leadership

Dr. Gyorgy Abel, MD is the Medical Director of Molecular Diagnostics, Clinical Chemistry/Immunology, and Point of Care Testing at the Lahey Hospital & Medical Center in Burlington, Massachusetts. He also serves as Instructor in Pathology, Part-time, at Harvard Medical School. Gyorgy received his M.D., and a Ph.D. degree in immunology in Hungary, completed post-doctoral research fellowship at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and pathology residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and received board certifications in Clinical Pathology and Molecular Diagnostics. He made significant contributions to hepatitis C virus research by demonstrating the use of LDL receptor by the virus as a port of entry into hepatocytes. His professional interests include precision medicine testing (Next Generation Sequencing for oncology), rapid molecular testing for infectious disease agents, and autoimmune disease diagnostics.

Dr. Abel has held office in professional organizations such as the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC), the College of American Pathologists, the American Association of Immunologists, and the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB). He is the current President of the AACC Academy. He is also an Overseas Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, U.K. Gyorgy is the author or co-author of approximately 100 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and scientific conference presentations. He frequently speaks nationally and internationally on current issues in clinical pathology and molecular diagnostics.