During the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, you’ll remember waiting in long queues for a medical professional to stick a swab up your nose for a PCR test, which they would send to a lab to see if you had the virus.
You’ll also probably have rapid testing kits at home, with the little strips you’d drop a few bits of mucus on to see if you’d been struck down.
A new test devised by a team led by Professor Ewa Goldys, from UNSW’s Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, promises the best of both worlds and much more. The new technology aims to be better than PCR. Anybody will be able to use it, just like a rapid antigen test, and they’ll spot many more illnesses than just covid.
“There is a gap between what you can do in the laboratory with single molecules and what you can do at home on your kitchen bench,” Professor Goldys says, “and we believe we have successfully bridged that gap.”
The test uses a technology called CRISPR – widely known from gene editing but capable of much more - to search for diseases like covid in the body.
The team’s invention of ‘Nanocircles’ amplifies the genetic signal from the virus, triggering a powerful reaction to indicate its presence.
The Nanocircles match the DNA being searched for in the body. Once that DNA is found, the CRISPR protein starts to rapidly cut the Nanocircles. This creates a colour signal that is highly visible.
“We believe that Nanocircles are a truly transformative technology. It is a technology that can be converted into a test strip…to you and I the Nanocircle test will look exactly like a COVID-19 test.
“…Unlike PCR, we can test genes at room temperature…Also, the cost is very low – currently less than a few dollars per test.”
Future applications for the CRISPR gene tests stretch far and wide.Test strips could be used for biosecurity, detecting potential invasive marine species, or in environmental science where DNA testing could indicate the presence or absence of threatened animals.
“In our published study we were also able to detect cancer mutations in patients’ samples in a clinical setting.”
It’s a promising and exciting development, but it’s not going on the shelves just yet. Professor Goldys says it’s being shared amongst other academics first.
The first product from the team is a box of general-use Nanocircles that researchers can add to existing DNA tests to boost sensitivity.
“There is a lot of interest in research into CRISPR sensors and we have already been approached by overseas institutions to try our Nanocircles, which we are very happy to do.”
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