Our research aims to standardize LAMP as a prediagnostic test, suitable for field or primary care settings lacking advanced laboratory infrastructure. We seek to promote the use of locally-producible buffers and alternative dyes, reducing dependence on imported commercial kits. Currently, CRISPR-Cas is an efficient system employed in the development of fast, specific, and sensitive diagnostic methods for pathogens.
Now, this system has a broad range of and supplements to detect RNA or DNA targets in different samples of interest. The current experimental challenges involve preventing non-target amplification resulting from amplicon contamination and primary cell especially with lengthy primers prone to dimer formation. Additionally, we aim to determine optimal reaction conditions to achieve a visually distinguishable color change in the dye.
Once it's standardized and fully validated, this method can be easily implemented and adapt to any laboratory or point-of-care within 60 minutes, at low cost and using inexpensive equipment, to detect almost any pathogen. Thus, it can potentially be used in primary care centers to carry out timely, epidemiological surveillance. Our multidisciplinary group is focused on the discovery of molecules from native Colombia plants, trying to identify the potential to inhibit the replication of viruses such as dengue, Zika, or SARS-COVID-2.
In addition, we are conducting studies to develop molecular diagnostic methods for these viruses.
