Through a partnership with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH), researchers at the Broad Institute are using mCARMEN, a CRISPR-based technology that can rapidly differentiate between Omicron, Delta, and other COVID-19 variants, to get a provisional look at the rising prevalence of Omicron in the state.
The MDPH requested Broad use mCARMEN to test COVID-19 specimens from across Massachusetts, enabling a faster, preliminary analysis of the prevalence of the variant for public health situational awareness, while viral genome sequencing is underway in parallel.
