![]() ![]() "We can't boil the ocean and do everything ourselves," he said, so this is "a way for us to really scale." If they desire, however, users can also work with Sherlock to port the assays onto the company's different testing systems, and Sherlock can supply these for customers to commercialize, Dechairo said. "Once they validate the assay using chemistry in their own labs and it is working very well, if they want to put that on to their own platform, their own devices, or the systems they already have in place, we are happy to discuss giving them a license to CRISPR since we have the worldwide exclusive rights to our chemistries," Dechairo said. The design service will be free of charge, and users can order reagents from Sherlock or elsewhere to evaluate the assays in their own labs. Sherlock's team of software developers put the algorithms into an operating system "that enables anybody else to just log in, pick which species they want a diagnostic for, what they want to exclude and include, and then just push the button and design those assays," he said. "What you're getting is the best of all possible assays, not the best of what the researcher thought of today or where the researcher wanted to look today," he said. The AI development interface has other advantages, as well, Dechairo said, for example by allowing the algorithm to develop assays for sequence spaces for which there aren't existing assays, rather than just focusing on target regions that are already known. The interface will allow users to select from not only different hosts or pathogens but also from different CRISPR and amplification chemistries with varying temperature requirements and multiplexing capabilities. The approach involves using machine learning to evaluate the entirety of possible targets for detection and to design thousands of possible assays that are then assessed in silico.ĭechairo said the approach improves the success rate of high-throughput assay screening and allows users to more quickly generate tests with high sensitivity and specificity.Īnd "it saves a ton of money because you're not ordering all these reagents and then trying to run things only to find out that they all fail," he said, adding, "You don't have to know anything about CRISPR or chemistries to have all of this done for you automatically." ![]() The firm's CRISPR-based assay design experience helped it generate a wealth of knowledge and data that is in turn utilized in the AI-based method, Dechairo said. Along these lines, work by Sherlock Cofounder Deborah Hung, in collaboration with other academic groups, has recently led to the development of a novel tiled assay to detect cell-free DNA of tuberculosis, as recently described in Nature Communications. Sherlock currently has undisclosed beta users of the tool, Dechairo said, including nongovernmental organizations and others, that are developing assays for illnesses like Lassa fever and tuberculosis. While the firm has been using the "back end" AI method for internal assay design, the "front end" user-facing operating system is new, and recently completed. The idea for using AI-based assay design originally came from the development work of Sherlock Cofounder Jim Collins, Dechairo said, and Sherlock gradually brought on experts from Collins' lab and built up a software development team. However, offering customers a platform to develop their own CRISPR-based diagnostics has also been a previously undisclosed part of Sherlock's overall business strategies for the past three years, according to CEO Bryan Dechairo.Ĭreating diagnostic assays typically requires iterative cycles of designing, building, and testing them. In the past few years, Sherlock has commercialized a COVID-19 test with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, acquired instrument-free point-of-care test maker Sense Biodetection, and licensed ambient nucleic acid amplification tech, which it intends to incorporate into CRISPR-based diagnostics. ![]() The service will be free and is estimated to reduce assay development time from one year down to three months. NEW YORK – CRISPR-based diagnostic technology developer Sherlock Biosciences will soon debut an assay design service that allows users to access the firm's novel artificial intelligence algorithms and create their own tests. ![]()
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