Feluda’ India’s first paper strip test

Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB) has developed ”Feluda” a low-cost COVID-19 test strip. It was developed by two scientists Dr Souvik Maiti and Dr Debojyoti Chakraborty.

The test is expected to cost around Rs 500 against the usual RT-PCR test that costs Rs 4,500 in private labs. The test gets its name after the detective character in legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray’s stories as it will detect the presence of a virus in just a few minutes.

Why is the technique named Feluda?

• The ‘paper-strip test’ being developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University is named after the famous (fictional) detective ‘Sherlock’.
• Indian scientists wanted to give an Indian name to the Indian version of this technology. Scientists have named this technique after the famous detective character ‘Feluda’ developed by Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray.
• The scientific name for this testing technique is ‘Fncas9 Editor Linked Uniform Detection Assay’, abbreviated as ‘FELUDA’.

Fact

• The Feluda is a paper strip test that detects the coronavirus in an hour.
• Feluda is an acronym for FNCAS9 Editor Linked Uniform Detection.
• It is expected to help to fulfil an urgent need of the rapid testing in India.
• It is the first such indigenous test kit to be developed in India based on Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) technology.
• CRISPR is a gene editing technology, which replicates natural defence mechanisms in bacteria to fight virus attacks, using a special protein called Cas
• CRISPR-Cas9 technology behaves like a cut-and-paste mechanism on DNA strands that contain genetic information. The specific location of the genetic codes that need to be changed, or edited, is identified on the DNA strand, and then, using the Cas9 protein, which acts like a pair of scissors, that location is cut off from the strand.
• A DNA strand, when broken, has a natural tendency to repair itself. Scientists intervene during this auto-repair process, supplying the desired sequence of genetic codes that binds itself with the broken DNA strand.

UPSC