New Delhi based CSIR- Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (CSIR-IGIB) and Mumbai based TATA Sons have signed a MoU for licensing of knowhow for FNCAS9 Editor Linked Uniform Detection Assay (FELUDA) for rapid diagnosis of COVID-19

The license shall include transfer of the knowledge for scaling up the KNOWHOW in the form of a kit that can be deployed for COVID-19 testing on ground as early as end of May.

A completely indigenous scientific invention, FELUDA for COVID-19 has been designed for mitigating the ongoing COVID-19 situation and cater to mass testing. Its main advantages are its affordability, relative ease of use and non-dependency on expensive Q-PCR machines. CSIR IGIB and TATA Sons will now work together to bring it for widespread use at the earliest.

Dr Anurag Agrawal, Director-IGIB highlighted that the technology was conceived and developed at CSIR IGIB under sickle cell mission and utilizes an indigenously developed cutting edge CRISPR Cas9 technology to specifically recognize COVID-19 sequence in a sample. A combination of CRISPR biology and paper-strip chemistry leads to a visible signal readout on a paper strip that can be rapidly assessed for establishing the presence of viral infection in a sample.