A team of researchers which include Teng Xu of the Vision Medicals Center for Infectious Diseases, Tieying Hou of the Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, and others have published their joint study in the open-access journal PLOS Pathogens claiming that they have developed a new low-cost diagnostic test for Covid-19.
They also claim that this test can quickly deliver accurate results. This test also does away with the need to use sophisticated equipment which is currently used in the existing diagnostic tests for Covid-19.
Currently, mNGS and RT-PCR are the most commonly used molecular methods for diagnosing COVID-19.
mNGS or metagenomic next-generation sequencing, and RT-PCR (reverse-transcription PCR) both have their own limitations. These tests are also unable to cope with the surging demand for rapid screening and identification of COVID-19.
In both these tests, sequencing is costly, and has a turnaround time of nearly one day. Health authorities find it difficult to deploy RT-PCR at a large scale as this test requires specialised equipment.
We still don’t have efficient public health responses to the threat posed by the pandemic because of a lack of rapid and accurate molecular diagnostic tools.
The alternative Covid-19 test, developed by the researchers, is based on CRISPER technology. CRISPER technology is synonymous with the gene editing.
The paper, aptly named CRISPR-COVID enables high-throughput detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) – the virus that causes COVID-19.
The researchers claim that it can deliver it can deliver similar sensitivity as that of mNGS within as short as 40 minutes.
It not only has competitive advantage over the existing test in terms of technology, it can also emerge as a cheaper alternative to them, says the study.
The authors note, “In this study, we developed an isothermal, CRISPR-based diagnostic for COVID-19 with near single-copy sensitivity.” and “We demonstrated a CRISPR-based assay for COVID-19 that offered shorter turn-around time and great diagnostic value, even in under-resourced settings without the need of thermal cyclers.”
