A new COVID-19 testing system that harnesses CRISPR gene-editing technology takes significantly less time to report results -- roughly 40 minutes, compared to the 4-to-6-hour turnaround with currently used tests. The scientists developing the CRISPR test are from UCSF and Mammoth Biosciences, a startup co-founded and advised by molecular and cell biology professor Jennifer Doudna, one of CRISPR's co-inventors. On Thursday, the researchers published a second study demonstrating the test's capabilities in the largest-yet sample of real patients in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Biotechnology. The test does currently have some flaws, including false negatives, but, as Charles Chiu, associate director of the UCSF clinical microbiology laboratory and the scientist leading the study with Mammoth, says: "The advantage of this test is that it could be done rapidly, and even multiple times, if needed. ... We literally went from nothing to an assay in three weeks. ... This is a state-of-the-art technology. ... It's going to undergo a lot of regulatory scrutiny because it's going to be the first of its kind." Chiu says they plan to submit the test for FDA approval next week.