Alumna takes on virus

Danielle Gadbois helps develop and distribute critical COVID-19 tests to regions in need

Catherine Silvey / Feature Editor / The USD Vista

While most Californian Toreros have hunkered down in their homes in accordance with recent “shelter-in-place”’ regulations, Danielle Gadbois, a University of San Diego alumna from the class of 2019, has spent the last month working to develop and distribute a test for the novel coronavirus that could save countless lives.

From her first year at USD, Gadbois knew two things — she wanted to be an engineer and she wanted to spend her life improving the lives of others. Gadbois noted that a turning point in the trajectory of her career occurred during the fall semester of her senior year, when she took a class with engineering professor Alex Mejia, Ph.D., after completing an internship with Northrop Grumman, a defense technology company.

“I took Dr. Mejia’s ‘Engineering and Social Justice’ class during the fall of my senior year, which was a critical time for deciding my future career,” Gadbois said. “Dr. Mejia’s class was even more eye opening to me, and really solidified my decision to not return to Northrop Grumman full-time or any other defense company, which makes up a large portion of opportunity for engineers, especially in San Diego. What really drove me to be committed to working in the medical and biotechnology industries was not only that I know the products are used to help others, but I believe the people who choose to work for these companies really care about others.”

After graduating, Gadbois began working at Carlsbad-based GenMark Diagnostics, a company that manufactures semi-automated medical testing systems including “consumables,” which are single-use test cartridges. Gadbois works on the instrument engineering team, where she ensures that the testing instrument performs both effectively and efficiently.

“My work at GenMark is primarily to implement design changes to our existing system that will allow the consumables to perform as intended each and every time,” Gadbois said. “In order to determine the design changes needed, I also investigate our machines in the field when they fail in order to determine what went wrong and what we could do to avoid the failures in the future.”

However, Gadbois’ work environment and focus changed entirely when COVID-19 emerged in early 2020. Despite facing challenges due to a lack of samples, GenMark was able to develop a coronavirus assay (or test) within three weeks, and began sending samples to Hong Kong for research purposes only.

When the coronavirus entered the United States, GenMark released their test as a product. Gadbois was then assigned a new role in the company.

“Once COVID-19 was in the U.S. our demand skyrocketed when we announced our release of a test for the novel coronavirus,” Gadbois said. “Both customers who currently have our product for other tests and new customers were coming to us hoping to get our system in their labs. Due to this new urgent demand, I was asked to help assist our molecular application specialist team whose one of many jobs is to install systems in clinical labs.”

Gadbois was sent to Northern California during the month of March to help install these new systems, navigating areas widely afflicted with the coronavirus to help distribute GenMark’s testing technology. 

“During the week of March 10, I was in the Bay Area and installed two new systems at UCSF, allowing them to run 12 tests at one time for research purposes and 12 tests at one time for COVID-19,” Gadbois said. “Then UCD received a new system to be able to run COVID-19, as well as added additional machines to their existing system for research purposes.”

Upon returning home, Gadbois has been asked to work remotely for two weeks to limit exposure with her coworkers, but notes that GenMark’s designation as an essential business means that the hard work carries on.

“Since the current shelter-in-place, my company is an essential business and people who have critical functions are working every day to ensure we can meet the demand of customers across the country,” Gadbois said. “I personally have been asked to work remotely for two weeks after being in hospitals. Other teams such as mine have been asked to work remotely as much as possible but being able to come into the office whenever critical tasks are needed to be performed in the office.”

Gadbois encourages fellow Toreros, especially those pursuing a career in engineering, to research their future careers and not be afraid to delve outside of what might be considered a standard career path. 

“My advice is do as much research as you can,” Gadvois said. “I never knew about my company or even thought about the types of products my company makes until I started doing research. If you have a specific field you want to go into such as mine, you will have to find the companies, learn about them, and then see what type of openings they might have for a role you are looking for.”

In the meantime, Gadbois continues to work with GenMark to develop and implement tests to combat the rising threat of the coronavirus.