{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"80,000 Hours Podcast","title":"#104 – Pardis Sabeti on the Sentinel system for detecting and stopping pandemics","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":8458,"description":"When the first person with COVID-19 went to see a doctor in Wuhan, nobody could tell that it wasn’t a familiar disease like the flu — that we were dealing with something new. \r\n\r\nHow much death and destruction could we have avoided if we'd had a hero who could? That's what the last Assistant Secretary of Defense Andy Weber asked on the show back in March.\r\n\r\nToday’s guest Pardis Sabeti is a professor at Harvard, fought Ebola on the ground in Africa during the 2014 outbreak, runs her own lab, co-founded a company that produces next-level testing, and is even the lead singer of a rock band. If anyone is going to be that hero in the next pandemic — it just might be her. \r\n\r\nLinks to learn more, summary and full transcript. \r\n\r\nShe is a co-author of the SENTINEL proposal, a practical system for detecting new diseases quickly, using an escalating series of three novel diagnostic techniques. \r\n\r\nThe first method, called SHERLOCK, uses CRISPR gene editing to detect familiar viruses in a simple, inexpensive filter paper test, using non-invasive samples. \r\n\r\nIf SHERLOCK draws a blank, we escalate to the second step, CARMEN, an advanced version of SHERLOCK that uses microfluidics and CRISPR to simultaneously detect hundreds of viruses and viral strains. More expensive, but far more comprehensive. \r\n\r\nIf neither SHERLOCK nor CARMEN detects a known pathogen, it's time to pull out the big gun: metagenomic sequencing. More expensive still, but sequencing all the DNA in a patient sample lets you identify and track every virus — known and unknown — in a sample. \r\n\r\nIf Pardis and her team succeeds, our future pandemic potential patient zero may: \r\n\r\n1. Go to the hospital with flu-like symptoms, and immediately be tested using SHERLOCK — which will come back negative \r\n2. Take the CARMEN test for a much broader range of illnesses — which will also come back negative \r\n3. Their sample will be sent for metagenomic sequencing, which will reveal that they're carrying a new virus...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/VO1STE7hN95RRg9QdLo4soV2VhhbR9PF5ZZlRhDYcwE/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9zaG93/LzQxNDAyLzE2ODM1/NDQ1NDAtYXJ0d29y/ay5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}