High-throughput CRISPR-based Diagnostic Assay for Coronaviruses and Other Respiratory Diseases

This proposal is intended to develop novel clinical diagnostics for, and increase our understanding of, thediversity, evolution, and spread of the newly emerged SARS-related coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and otherrespiratory disease-causing pathogens in the United States.Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is associated with mild to severe respiratory disease, which can befatal. The novel viral etiological agent was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan City, Hubei Province,China following an outbreak of pneumonia in individuals associated with a seafood market, and has sincespread globally. Originally named "2019 novel coronavirus", the virus has since been renamed severe acuterespiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). As of 10 February 2020, this includes 40,554confirmed cases and 910 deaths within 25 countries1. There have been 12 confirmed cases of COVID-19 inthe United States2, one of which was identified in Boston, MA in an individual who recently returned fromChina3. As public health agencies continue to monitor, track, and attempt to control its spread, it is most crucialthat they are equipped with the most effective tools to detect SARS-CoV-2 and distinguish it from othercommon causes of similar respiratory illness.This proposal addresses the critical gap in clinical diagnostics amidst the quickly moving COVID-19 outbreakby advancing multiplexed and point of care tools for screening a large number of respiratory disease samplesin a public health lab setting. It builds upon the genomic disease surveillance aims of the Viral project withinour existing Genomic Centers for Infectious Disease (NIAID), but accounts for the increased costs based onthe scale of work related to outbreak response. The tools generated by this project specifically address aglaring need at the public health laboratory level and have the potential to accelerate their investigative abilitiesfor undiagnosed respiratory disease.