Revolutionizing Medicine

CRISPR (short for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats”) is a technology that research scientists use to selectively identify & potentially modify the DNA of living organisms. CRISPR was adapted for use in the laboratory from naturally occurring genome editing systems found in bacteria.

IntelliGenome has used CRISPR to engineer a probe that identifies a sequence of DNA that is unique to the bacteria that causes tuberculosis in humans. When IntelliGenome's CRISPR-probe attaches to that DNA segment, a fluorescent marker is activated, signalling not only the presence of the bacteria in the sample, but also the volume of bacteria present in the sample.

The basic design of the CRISPR-probe can be adapted to identify other pathogens, including bacteria, viruses and fungi. CRISPR-probes have already been engineered to detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus, as well as prominent strains of Nontuberculous Mycobacteria (NTM). Our research and development efforts are ongoing to develop additional CRISPR-probes and to develop detection systems capable of detecting multiple pathogens simultaneously, e.g. co-infection with both TB and HIV, which is a leading cause of mortality among people living with HIV.