Translating daily COVID-19 screening into a simple glucose test: a proof of concept study

Abstract

Home testing is an attractive emerging strategy to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and prevent overloading of healthcare resources through at-home isolation, screening and monitoring of symptoms. However, current diagnostic technologies of SARS-CoV-2 still suffer from some drawbacks because of the tradeoffs between sensitivity, usability and costs, making the test unaffordable to most users at home. To address these limitations, taking advantage of clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPRs) and a portable glucose meter (PGM), we present a proof-of-concept demonstration of a target-responsive CRISPR-PGM system for translating SARS-CoV-2 detection into a glucose test. Using this system, a specific N gene, N protein, and pseudo-viruses of SARS-CoV-2 have been detected quantitatively with a PGM. Given the facile integration of various bioreceptors into the CRISPR-PGM system, the proposed method provides a starting point to provide patients with a single-device solution that can quantitatively monitor multiple COVID-19 biomarkers at home.