PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Jennifer N. Rauch
AU  - Eric Valois
AU  - Sabrina C. Solley
AU  - Friederike Braig
AU  - Ryan S. Lach
AU  - Morgane Audouard
AU  - Jose Carlos Ponce-Rojas
AU  - Michael S. Costello
AU  - Naomi J. Baxter
AU  - Kenneth S. Kosik
AU  - Carolina Arias
AU  - Diego Acosta-Alvear
AU  - Maxwell Z. Wilson
TI  - A Scalable, Easy-to-Deploy, Protocol for Cas13-Based Detection of SARS-CoV-2 Genetic Material
AID  - 10.1101/2020.04.20.052159
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.04.20.052159
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/07/24/2020.04.20.052159.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/07/24/2020.04.20.052159.full
AB  - The COVID-19 pandemic has created massive demand for widespread, distributed tools for detecting SARS-CoV-2 genetic material. The hurdles to scalable testing include reagent and instrument accessibility, availability of highly-trained personnel, and large upfront investment. Here we showcase an orthogonal pipeline we call CREST (Cas13-based, Rugged, Equitable, Scalable Testing) that addresses some of these hurdles. Specifically, CREST pairs commonplace and reliable biochemical methods (PCR) with low-cost instrumentation, without sacrificing detection sensitivity. By taking advantage of simple fluorescence visualizers, CREST allows for a binary interpretation of results. CREST may provide a point- of-care solution to increase the distribution of COVID-19 surveillance.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.