The Tata Group has announced the Tata CRISPR test, which is India’s first CRISPR test.
- It has been named ‘Feluda’- a fictional private detective from West Bengal created by renowned writer and filmmaker Satyajit Ray.
- It has been developed by a research team led by Debojyoti Chakraborty and Souvik Maiti of the CSIR-IGIB (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology).
- Feluda is the acronym for FNCAS9 Editor Linked Uniform Detection Assay.
- The Tata CRISPR test uses indigenously developed CRISPR gene-editing technology to identify and target the genetic material of SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes Covid-19.
- ‘Feluda’ is also the world’s first diagnostic test to deploy a specially adapted Cas9 protein to successfully detect the virus.
- The test is similar to a pregnancy test strip that will just change colour upon detection of the virus.
- The Cas9 protein is barcoded to interact with the SARS-CoV2 sequence in the patient’s genetic material.
- CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats), is a gene editing technology.
(Source: Indian Express)
CLICK HERE FOR UPSC PRELIMS CURRENT AFFAIRS MCQ
