Changtang national nature reserve, Nature reserve in Nagqu Prefecture, China

Beijing, Aug 29 Chinese researchers have developed a new low-cost diagnostic test for Covid-19 which quickly delivers accurate results without the need for sophisticated equipment."In this study, we developed an isothermal, CRISPR-based diagnostic for Covid-19 with near single-copy sensitivity," the study authors from Xuzhou Medical University in China, wrote in a paper published in the journal PLOS Pathogens."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 for thermal cyclers," they added.The surging demand for rapid screening and identification of Covid-19 poses great diagnostic challenges.Metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) and reverse-transcription PCR (RT-PCR) have been the most commonly used molecular methods for diagnosing Covid-19, but each has its own limitations.For example, sequencing is costly and has a turnaround time of nearly one day, while RT-PCR requires specialized equipment and is difficult to deploy at a large scale.According to the researchers, a lack of rapid and accurate molecular diagnostic tools has hampered efficient public health responses to the viral threat.In the new study, the researchers developed an alternative Covid-19 test by leveraging CRISPR-based technology, which has been widely used in recent years for gene editing.The assay, named CRISPR-COVID, enables high-throughput detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) - the virus that causes Covid-19.CRISPR-COVID delivers comparable sensitivity and specificity as mNGS within as short as 40 minutes, the researchers said.When produced at a large scale, the material cost of a CRISPR-COVID test could be less than 70 cents, suggesting that CRISPR-COVID is a competitive alternative not only technologically but also financially, the team noted.( With inputs from IANS )Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor

Changtang National Nature ReserveFOLLOW

Changtang national nature reserve, Latest News

Beijing/New Delhi, Aug 31 TikTok owner ByteDance has said it will abide by the new rules set by ... ...

China's new export rules for technologies like artificial intelligence is likely to come in way of the survival of TikTok in the United States where it is struggling to continue its operations after an ultimatum by President Donald Trump to the compa ...

New Delhi, Aug 30 Chip giant Qualcomm led the global cellular Internet of Things (IoT) module chipset shipments ... ...

New Delhi, Aug 30 Riding on a strong 5G push, the global smartphone market will return to a ... ...

Beijing, Aug 30 At least 29 people were killed after a restaurant collapsed in China's Shanxi province, authorities ... ...

At least five people have been killed and one more was wounded, as a hotel collapsed in China's northern Shanxi province, China Central Television (CCTV) reported on Saturday, adding that over 700 people are participating in search and rescue operati ...

In a big step in the backdrop of an ongoing conflict with China in eastern Ladakh, India is likely to convey to Russia that its troops would not be participating in the multinational military exercise Kavkaz-2020 where Chinese and Pakistani troops ar ...

Beijing, Aug 29 Chinese researchers have developed a new low-cost diagnostic test for Covid-19 which quickly delivers accurate ... ...