Team:Cardiff Wales/Cas-Find
Cas-Find
Cas-Find is a point-of-care diagnostic tool using the CRISPR-Cas9 system with the potential to radically change the speed of STI disease diagnosis.
Lets take one of the most common sexually transmitted infections in the UK affecting on average 200,000 people each year, chlamydia. Currently to test for this infection you take either a urine sample or swab to determine if the chlamydia bacteria (Chlamydia trachomatis) is present. Analysing the samples involves using nucleic acid amplification tests (NAAT) such as PCR or by growing a chlamydia culture. Cultures incur high costs, have varying sensitivity and limitations for widespread screening whilst both methods are laborious and often time consuming. Cas-Find aims to reduce the time to disease detection. Using the CRISPR-Cas9 system specific sequences on the suspect bacteria can be immediately detected, emitting a measureable fluorescence if present.
This point-of-care nature of our project can significantly advantage those where lab access if limited, expensive and the speed of diagnosis is crucial in making the appropriate clinical decisions.
