The team paired the SHERLOCK platform developed in Feng Zhang's lab with a protocol that detects viruses directly from bodily fluids in less than two hours.
The researchers have made the pipeline, called CRISPRdisco, free for other scientists to use through Github, and are hoping the community will also help refine and update it.
The team integrated tumor barcoding, genome editing, and ultra-deep barcode sequencing to interrogate pairwise combinations of tumor suppressor alterations.
The latest version of the nucleic acid detection platform uses three CRISPR enzymes, making it more sensitive and capable of smaller quantitative measurements.
By switching off tumor suppressor genes in immunocompetent mice, the team saw that liver cancer developed and killed the mice within four to five months.
The firm said it will use the funding to expand its research capabilities, including the continued development of the MADzyme family of CRISPR enzymes.
With H3Africa, Charles Rotimi has been working to bolster the representation of African participants and African researchers in genomics, Newsweek reports.
