Covid-19: Crispr-based coronavirus test takes approximately 40 minutes

Quick test: American scientists have developed a method that can be used to determine if a patient is infected with the Sars-CoV-2 virus in less than three-quarters of an hour. The test uses the Crispr gene editing tool.

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1. North Baden Psychiatric Center, Wiesloch
2. Frankfurt University Hospital, Frankfurt am Main

The Crispr-Cas9 process was only developed a few years ago. It offers the possibility of cutting a genome chain at a very specific point and inserting other genetic information at this point. Doctors hope to use it to develop treatment methods for certain diseases that have so far not been successfully combated.

Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and the biotech company Mammoth Biosciences are using the method to detect a ribonucleic acid (RNA) in a sample. RNA is a genetic chain like deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), but it consists of a single chain. The researchers programmed the Crispr system to recognize two sequences in the Sars CoV-2 virus genome.

One of the sequences occurs in all Sars-like coronaviruses, the other only in Sars-CoV-2. By searching for both sequences, the researchers make sure that the test distinguishes between Sars-CoV-2 and related viruses.

As usual, the sample is taken from the patient’s nose or throat. The test result is determined after about 40 minutes. It can be read on a test strip comparable to a pregnancy test. The standard polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test takes approximately four hours.

The Crispr-based test, which the developers called Detectr, detects the virus with 95 percent accuracy: Detectr identified 38 out of 40 samples that were confirmed to be positive, corresponding to an error rate of 5 percent. As cross-checking, the researchers also used Detectr to analyze 42 samples that had been confirmed as negative. Neither was wrongly identified as positive. According to the developers, Detectr does not require any complex laboratory equipment.

Researchers led by Charles Chiu of UCSF and Janice Chen of Mammoth Biosciences describe their results in an article in the journal Nature Biotechnology. They are currently trying to obtain approval for the test from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the US Food and Drug Administration. USA