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So the problem is that there are hundreds or thousands of different types of viral and bacterial infections you can get, many of which probably haven't even bee

So the problem is that there are hundreds or thousands of different types of viral and bacterial infections you can get, many of which probably haven't even been discovered yet, but STD testing only covers the four or five most common things. Even if you can theoretically detect a lot more stuff with CRISPR, it's going to be decades until the technology is anywhere approaching comprehensive.

derefr 9y ago
It seems to me that treatment for STDs, and knowing whether someone "might have an STD", are very different problems, that happen to be currently solved by the same solutions. If you could build a whitelist of known benign strains of bacteria and viruses, and then create a device that tests your urine and dings whenever it detects things that are (positive match) bacterial antibodies or viral capsids, but that aren't (negative match) in its whitelist, that seems like it'd do a lot to help people.
newnewpdro 9y ago
Sure, but even just being able to quickly answer "HIV or HPV?" has tremendous value. Everything else is perfectly treatable, no?
- book_mentioned 9y ago
  More interesting to me if this could detect HIV within the first 30 days of infection. I'm no expert but IIRC that's not possible with any test right now.
  - evolve2017 9y ago
    Not quite true - we're down to around 14 days with the latest generation of tests. The ideal would be a rapid 'fever' panel that tests for all the viruses we currently pay a ton of money for. This sort of test could pick up early-stage HIV which, if symptomatic, don't feel much different from a cold/flu. [1] - https://www.aafp.org/afp/2014/0215/afp20140215p265-f1.gif https://www.aafp.org/afp/2014/0215/afp20140215p265-f1.gif
- Untit1ed 9y ago
  Unfortunately due to antibiotic resistance, no :(.