Coronavirus: test that can detect pathogen in 5 minutes developed by Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna

Name: How successful was Hong Kong’s coronavirus mass testing programme?
Uploaded: 2020-10-10T04:19:44.000Z
Duration: 2 min 36 s
Description: How successful was Hong Kong’s coronavirus mass testing programme?

California-based researchers develop a test that can detect the coronavirus using gene-editing technology and a modified mobile phone camera

Mobile phones were used for ‘their robustness and cost-effectiveness, and the fact that they are widely available’, say the researchers

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The research team was led by University of California, Berkeley’s Dr Jennifer Doudna, a joint winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize for chemistry. Photo: Reuters

Eduardo Baptista

Published: 12:19pm, 10 Oct 2020Updated: 5:25pm, 10 Oct 2020

A team of California-based researchers have developed a test that can detect the coronavirus in five minutes using gene-editing technology and a modified mobile phone camera, a discovery that could solve the issue of under-testing in epidemic-stricken countries.

Led by University of California, Berkeley’s Dr Jennifer Doudna, who is the joint winner of this year’s Nobel Prize for chemistry, the test’s successful development was announced in a research paper published on September 30. The paper is still in preprint, meaning it has not been peer-reviewed.

As Covid-19 cases continue to shoot up in some of the world’s largest countries like the US, India and Brazil, huge backlogs of tests have strained public health systems. Most Covid-19 tests currently take at least 24 hours, but sometimes backlogs can lead to delays spanning several days.

A recent survey conducted in the US showed that the average waiting time for nasal swab-based test results – based on a sample of more than 19,000 – was 4.1 days, with 10 per cent taking 10 days or more.

There has also been an issue with reliability. Even polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, the so-called gold standard of Covid-19 testing, which involves amplifying a specific DNA or RNA sample by copying it millions to billions of times until it is detectable, has been marred by unreliability. Peer-reviewed studies have suggested that up to 30 per cent of PCR tests are inaccurate.

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How successful was Hong Kong’s coronavirus mass testing programme?

Without swift and accurate testing, governments are deprived of real-time snapshots of how an infection is spreading. But if this new test is successfully commercialised and scaled up, people could receive nearly immediate Covid-19 tests, even from the comfort of their home.

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