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CascAID combines portability, affordability, and usability of point-of-care tests with the universality and sensitivity of PCR-based nucleic acid detection. Also, the Cas13a enzyme provides a superior, single-nucleotide specificity, so it is no wonder that the range of application possibilities is wide. It can help differentiate between viral and bacterial infections, which is of great importance for lowering antibiotics over-prescription. This way a misuse of antibiotics as a leading reason for resistant bacteria strains would be significantly reduced. Currently, pathogens are discriminated by cell culture or PCR-based methods, requiring expensive equipment, trained personal, and time. Because of that, it is not rarely a case that doctors, facing the pressure of sick patient, prescribe antibiotics prematurely. Furthermore since our device is a point-of-care device optimised to be used by anyone regardless on education background, people would be able to spare themselves a visit to hospital, where they are likely to catch some other infection because of already weakened immune system.
Other point-of-care tests on the market, like pregnancy tests, target certain metabolites and are therefore restricted to one specific application. CascAID on the other hand, can be easily adapted to variety of targets - from bacterial infections and rapidly evolving viral epidemics to a cancer-associated mutations.
Since it is possible to adapt the device to detect practically any pathogen, it can be customized to fit the planet region where it is used. There are many populated regions that are far away from health stations, so mobile health-stations visiting these areas could use a device like ours. For instance in Africa where some diseases are very common for specific areas, our device could serve as a quick test that would tell a person if they should go and see a doctor as soon as possible. Unfortunately lot of people, because of the distance to hospitals, tend to wait for too long for symptoms to go away. This way a curable disease can be lethal.
However with one highly modularised construct as ours, possibilities don’t end here. Each module can find its use separately or be further developed and optimised. For instance, led with an open-source philosophy, we provided detailed documentations and CAD-drawings of our fluorescence detector for anyone wanting to improve its design. The detector can be used to measure kinetics of any biological or chemical reactions on paper and the assemble costs are such that it can compete with commercially available fluorescence readers. Also because of its scale it is highly practical for in-field application in contrast to current detectors on market.
Due to its speed, our device can already find its use in different laboratories, where it can enable quick sample testing essential for fast prototyping and contribute this way to many new amazing findings to come.
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