Dr. Deepak Srivastava and the Science of Infection, Testing, and Treatment

Gridlock Break

Deepak Srivastava is president of Gladstone Institutes. He is also the Younger Family Professor and a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease and director of the Roddenberry Stem Cell Center. At UC San Francisco (UCSF), Srivastava is a professor in the departments of pediatrics and biochemistry and biophysics. Today, he discusses novel approaches to COVID-19 diagnostic testing, treatments, and prevention. Dr. Srivastava dives right into the three key components of the COVID-19 pandemic that will affect how we move forward. He maintains that chief among those components - testing, treatment, and prevention via vaccine - is the improvement needed to diagnostic testing. By moving from the current method of lab testing, which is expensive and tests by amplifying viral genomes, to a test done in real time, we can begin reopening businesses and resuming a sense of normalcy. One possibility he suggests is the work being done by a virologist at the Gladstone Institute using CRISPR technology and enabling a smartphone camera to operate as a microscope, eliminating the need to amplify genomes and send every test to a lab for results. Go to NoLabels.org to learn more about how we are bringing together a bipartisan group of public and private leaders working to stop the virus, save lives and get Americans back to work.