A No-frills Tool for Flu Diagnosis

A genetic engineering team of 12 undergraduate students of business administration, engineering, biomedical sciences and life sciences took home a Gold medal at the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) 2018 Giant Jamboree held in Boston, US with a novel rapid influenza diagnostic tool, the seventh time a CUHK team has won gold in the premier synthetic biology competition. The tool detects and distinguishes the flu virus’s type by detecting its RNA target sequence and takes only around 30 minutes for the results. Together with a smart phone, people can use the small and light detector on their own to detect whether they catch flu.

This article was originally published in No. 531, Newsletter in Jan 2019.