Researchers have found multiple applications for the CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspersed Short Palindromic Repeats) gene editing technology since it came into use by the scientific community. Keck Graduate Institute (KGI) Assistant Professor and University of California, Berkeley Visiting Scientist Kiana Aran is the first to combine the power of CRISPR’s nucleic acid targeting with the ultra sensitivity of graphene, making it possible to digitally detect DNA without amplification.
To detect DNA without amplification is so shocking, so futuristic. This will skip several generations of technology development.
Aran’s novel system immobilizes the CRISPR complexes on the surface of graphene-based transistors. These complexes search a genome to find their target sequence and, if the search is successful, bind to its DNA. This binding changes the conductivity of the graphene material in the transistor, which detects the change using a handheld reader developed by Aran’s industry partner, San Diego-based Cardea Bio.