Team:UMaryland
ABSTRACT
Accelerating the pace and improving the accessibility of COVID-19 testing is critical for the world’s response to the pandemic, especially in university settings. UMaryland iGEM set out to design a low-tech COVID-19 diagnostic test that is reliable, easy to use, and easy to interpret. Lacking access to a wet lab, the team has designed and modeled an isothermal CRISPR-based diagnostic that employs two DNA-programmed catalytically dead Cas13 (dCas13) recognition domains, each fused to part of a split beta-lactamase. A color change occurs upon the reconstitution of the enzyme, and we predict with reasonable confidence that the signal will be visible to the human eye after 30 minutes. Three separate G-blocks will be used in conjunction with 3A assembly to clone the two dCas13-split-lactamase ORFs. Besides designing this test, we have rolled out a COVID-19 informational clearinghouse web site targeted to the UMD student population.