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Why CRISPR could be the key to faster at-home COVID-19 tests – Source fastcompany.com

By Piyush K. Jain6 minute Read

A desperately needed tool to curb the COVID-19 pandemic is an inexpensive home-based rapid testing kit that can detect the coronavirus without needing to go to the hospital.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved a few home sample collection kits but a number of researchers, including myself, are using the gene-editing technique known as CRISPR to make home tests. If they work, these tests could be very accurate and give people an answer in about an hour.

I am a biomolecular scientist with training in pharmaceutical sciences and biomedical engineering, and my lab focuses on developing next-generation of technologies for detecting and treating cancer, genetic, and infectious diseases.

The COVID-19 disease is caused by a coronavirus named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Unlike humans which carry their genetic material encoded in DNA, the coronavirus encodes theirs in a related molecule called RNA.

My research group…

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Source : fastcompany.com

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