For rapid detection of Foot-and-Mouth disease (FMD) virus at point-of-care. FMD is a highly contagious viral disease of cloven-hoofed animals, endemic in many parts of the world. Varizymes is developing a LAMP-based diagnostic kit for detection of FMD virus at POC within 30 minutes.

Current LAMP methods can independently detect and differentiate only one target per reaction compared to 3-4 in a standard real-time PCR reaction. Varizymes’ TORCH™ Technology enables detection of up to 3 targets (DNA or RNA) in a single LAMP reaction. This technology expands upon existing LAMP primer design and does not require the use of additional primers or probes.

The RNA-guided endonuclease Cas9, associated with Type II CRISPR/Cas systems, site-specifically digests DNA using a single guide RNA (sgRNA) which it binds to direct it to the complementary sequence. Varizymes offers a unique, patent-pending version of Streptococcus pyogenes CRISPR/Cas9 nuclease with multiple NLSs for in vivo nuclear localization and a β-lactamase (Bla) for sorting of successfully transformed or transfected cells by flow cytometry (details on use conditions available
upon request).