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This year’s Nobel laureate in chemistry, Jennifer Doudna, has developed a test for COVID-19 in which the test result is obtained after just five minutes. The test is based on the same technology for which he receives the Nobel Prize.
Last week, the Nobel Committee announced that this year’s chemistry prize goes to French Emmanuelle Charpentier and American Jennifer Doudna for so-called genetic scissors. They are praised for a molecular biology technology called Crispr which, with the help of various enzymes, has revolutionized the ability to “cut and paste” into the genome with very high precision.
Now one of the award winners, Jennifer Doudna, used the same technology and developed a test for COVID-19 in which the test result comes after just five minutes, instead of several hours or days like today. The test, writes the journal Science, is also so simple that it could be used in regular medical surgeries, schools, or offices.
It turns on
The starting point is a small piece of RNA, because the virus genome consists of RNA rather than DNA. The small RNA fragment is complementary and unique to the virus and binds to the corresponding sequence in the virus genome, provided it is present in solution.
If this happens, an enzyme present in the solution, which is an important component of the Crispr technique, will cut the RNA strand right at the ends of the added RNA fragment. This in turn results in the entry of fluorescent particles into the sample. If the solution is exposed to laser light, the fluorescent particles will light up, which is a sign that the person who left the sample is a carrier of the virus.
Similar tests already exist for covid-19. However, these tests require that you first copy the number of RNA strands before running the actual test, which makes these tests difficult to handle and time-consuming.
Elegant
Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues have now refined the technology by developing several different pieces of RNA that can work in parallel with each other, which improves accuracy and shortens the time required before the test result arrives, as the RNA strands they no longer need to be copied. In addition, the intensity of the signal can be used to quantify the amount of virus in the sample. The more the test tube is lit, the more virus particles.
The test must undergo a major evaluation before it can be marketed, but a first study of a small number of clinical samples showed that the test scored correctly in all cases, after just five minutes.
– They seem to have developed a bomb proof test. It’s really stylish, says Max Wilson, a molecular biologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in a comment to the magazine.
Facts: from the world of bacteria
The so-called Crispr technology was developed at the beginning of the decade. The technology makes it possible to cut and paste the genome of all living organisms with a precision that was previously completely unthinkable. The method, known as Crispr-Cas9, is based on the knowledge of how bacteria defend themselves against virus particles by cutting their DNA strand using various enzymes. It was developed, among other things, by researchers at Umeå University, where one of this year’s winners, Emmanuelle Charpentier, has been active.
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