The genome editing tool CRIPSR was introduced to promote a new phase in genetic technology, but the tool is being adapted for another purpose. It may now be possible to use CRISPR to diagnose patients, giving doctors the ability to detect diseases and various medical conditions much sooner. This is exciting, because earlier detection means medical conditions can be treated before they worsen, which improves the chances of full recovery.
Jennifer Doudna, a researcher at the University of California at Berkeley, helped to found the company responsible for CRIPSR. She is also on the team behind this new application for the tool. In conjunction with Doudna, a University of California at Berkeley researcher, Mammoth Biosciences has announced plans to create easy to use diagnostic kits using Crispr technology. Once released, the kits could allow the early diagnosis of diseases in hospitals and even at home.
CRISPR is programmed to identify a specific piece of DNA and, when used in conjunction with certain proteins, it can actually repair genetic defects. Researchers hope this technology will advance to the point at which it will also be able to cure diseases in a similar way. When combined with the Cas12 or Cas13 proteins, CRISPR can already identify DNA left behind by viruses. In this way, it can possibly detect the Zika virus and some types of cancer.
Doudna isn’t alone. Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University are each working on similar technologies. It will remain to be seen who perfects the application first, though papers have already been published to demonstrate that the technology does work. In Doudna’s paper, she found that the CRISPR-Cas12 system could spot the HPV virus. In her research, Doudna used a “reporter molecule” that exhibits a fluorescent signal once cut. She released the molecule into vials of human cells and found that only those cells infected with HPV glowed.
Meanwhile, the MIT group published a paper revealing that the CRISPR could be adapted to detect multiple diseases at once. Led by Feng Zhang, the MIT researchers also said that the kit could be manufactured for as little as $2 per test. This would go a long way toward helping people in low-income countries, where access to advanced diagnostic equipment is limited.
If CRISPR technology can be adapted in this way, it could change how we treat diseases. By treating illnesses sooner and more inexpensively, quality healthcare becomes more widely available.