Home Department: Undeclared
Mentor: Jason Andrews (Medicine - Infectious Diseases)

"Developing CRISPR-Based Molecular Assays to optimize Tuberculosis Treatment"

Tuberculosis (TB) is a leading cause of death from infectious disease, with over 13 million people in the United States living with TB infection and 300,000 receiving preventive therapy annually. Current TB treatment uses standardized drug doses that do not account for genetic differences, often causing toxic side effects and treatment failure. Sarah’s project will work on developing a CRISPR-based diagnostic test to detect NAT2 genetic variants that influence drug response. She will test and design CRISPR-Cas guides, run molecular assays with fluorescence readouts, and evaluate assay performance to support safer, more personalized tuberculosis treatment through point-of-care genetic testing.