The biotech start-ups racing to create quicker coronavirus tests
Biotech start-ups are racing to create faster and more accurate ways to test for coronavirus as countries including the US and the UK struggle to expand production of existing methods fast enough.
Mammoth Biosciences, co-founded by Jennifer Doudna, one of the scientists who discovered Crispr gene-editing technology in 2012, is working with the University of California San Francisco to validate a test that it developed for Covid-19 in under two weeks.
The company, which is backed by Apple chief executive Tim Cook and Alphabet’s Verily, has only 32 staff and no product on the market but chief executive Trevor Martin is confident the technology is up to the task. “This is exactly what [Crispr] technology is meant to help with: rapid response to infectious diseases,” he said.
