SunstarTV Bureau: Scientists have invented a novel technology for a Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) based Covid-19 test that uses a Smartphone camera to provide accurate results in less than 30 minutes.
According to the journal cell, this new technology can not only generate a positive or negative result, but also measures the viral load concentration of virus in a given sample.
Jennifer Doudna, a senior investigator at Gladstone Institutes in the US, said, “One reason we are excited about CRISPR-based diagnostics is the potential for quick, accurate results at the point of need. This is especially helpful in places with limited access to testing, or when frequent, rapid testing is needed. It could eliminate a lot of the bottlenecks we’ve seen with COVID-19.”
The Smartphone camera can be converted into a microscope and used to detect the fluorescence. Researchers say that the assay could be adapted in a wide variety of mobile phones, making the technology easily accessible.
When the scientists tested their device using patient samples, they confirmed that it could provide a very fast turnaround time of results for samples with clinically relevant viral loads.
Researchers mentioned that the device required up to 30min- for samples with a low viral load, otherwise it will accurately detect a set of positive samples in less than 5 minutes.
