Two rapid CRISPR-based COVID-19 tests for at-home and point-of-care settings

Academic groups led by  Sherlock Biosciences Inc. co-founder James J. Collins and CRISPR co-inventor Jennifer Doudna unveiled CRISPR-based COVID-19 diagnostics that could enable at-home, variant-specific saliva testing within one hour and point-of-care respiratory swab testing within 20 minutes, respectively.

Described in Science Advances, the saliva-based test from the Collins-led group comprises a self-contained device that can be manufactured using a 3-D printer, estimated to cost $15 and paired with a smartphone application that automates results interpretation. The test, dubbed miSHERLOCK, is based on Sherlock’s Specific High-sensitivity Enzymatic Reporter UnLOCKing (SHERLOCK) technology. miSHERLOCK was able to distinguish between three SARS-CoV-2 variants and had a limit of detection (LoD), defined as the lowest viral load a test can detect 95% of the time, that matches the gold standard COVID-19 diagnostic test — lab-based reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) — of one copy/μL...