{"id":24843,"date":"2026-09-16T04:54:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T04:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/?p=24843"},"modified":"2026-09-16T04:54:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T04:54:13","slug":"meet-austin-jin-the-16-year-old-great-neck-new-york-student-who-built-a-crispr-blood-test-to-detect-tuberculosis-and-drug-resistance-he-won-50000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/?p=24843","title":{"rendered":"Meet Austin Jin, the 16-year-old Great Neck, New York student who built a CRISPR blood test to detect tuberculosis and drug resistance; he won $50,000"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"e9jwa\">\n<div class=\"vdo_embedd\">\n<div class=\"GfdvZ\">\n<section class=\"_bIDB  clearfix id-r-component leadmedia undefined undefined  E9tg9 \" style=\"top:0px\">\n<div class=\"_bIDB\" data-ua-type=\"1\" onclick=\"stpPgtnAndPrvntDefault(event)\">\n<div class=\"ypVvZ\">\n<div class=\"WGttI\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.toiimg.com\/thumb\/msid-134262347,imgsize-572897,width-400,height-225,resizemode-4\/outside-the-lab-jin-captains-his-varsity-swim-team-and-co-presidents-his-deca-chapter-he-also-co-founded-project-life-a-student-led-initiative-that-has-grown-to-over-20-chapters-in-eight-states-with-a-mission-to-improve-education-and-access-to-the-bone-marrow-registry.jpg\" alt=\"Meet Austin Jin, the 16-year-old Great Neck, New York student who built a CRISPR blood test to detect tuberculosis and drug resistance; he won $50,000\" title=\"Outside the lab, Jin captains his varsity swim team and co-presidents his DECA chapter. He also co-founded Project LIFE, a student-led initiative that has grown to over 20 chapters in eight states, with a mission to improve education and access to the bone marrow registry.\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"Ta7d_ img_cptn\"><span title=\"Outside the lab, Jin captains his varsity swim team and co-presidents his DECA chapter. He also co-founded Project LIFE, a student-led initiative that has grown to over 20 chapters in eight states, with a mission to improve education and access to the bone marrow registry.\">Outside the lab, Jin captains his varsity swim team and co-presidents his DECA chapter. He also co-founded Project LIFE, a student-led initiative that has grown to over 20 chapters in eight states, with a mission to improve education and access to the bone marrow registry.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Most teenagers go to a pathology office for a blood test. For Austin Jin, it was the launch pad to address one of medicine\u2019s oldest and most enduring problems: diagnosing tuberculosis.<!-- --> A 16-year-old senior at William A. Shine Great Neck South High School in Great Neck, NY, developed M-CATCH, a diagnostic platform based on CRISPR that can detect tuberculosis from blood and identify drug-resistant strains. According to the Davidson Institute website, his work earned him the 2026 Davidson Fellowship and a $50,000 scholarship. Scroll down to read about his journey.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"3\"\/><\/p>\n<p><h2>Another approach to TB diagnosis<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>Tuberculosis remains a major global health threat with over a million deaths reported annually worldwide. <!-- -->But one of the biggest challenges in fighting the disease comes even before treatment starts: getting an accurate diagnosis. Sputum, the mucus produced deep in the lungs, is used in many standard TB tests. And that creates a particular problem for young children and severely ill or immunocompromised patients, many of whom have difficulty producing a usable sample.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"9\"\/>But in the online report, Jin\u2019s project takes a different tack. M-CATCH screens the blood serum for circulating bacterial DNA fragments in the blood. The system uses polymerase chain reactions and CRISPR-Cas12a technology to find genetic signatures associated with tuberculosis.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"13\"\/><\/p>\n<p><h2><keyword id=\"39325619\" type=\"Denny\" weightage=\"20\" keywordseo=\"drug-resistance-testing\" source=\"keywords\">Drug resistance testing<\/keyword><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>This test is not intended to determine whether tuberculosis exists. It can also look for genetic alterations that make the bacteria resistant to certain drugs and that level of detection can come down to a single change in DNA. <!-- -->Jin engineered CRISPR guide RNAs that can distinguish between these tiny genetic differences and combined them with a microfluidics chip that allows multiple reactions to occur at the same time.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"18\"\/>The result is a multiplex platform that can screen hundreds of reactions for more than one mutation simultaneously. This could eventually make large-scale testing more practical, especially in places where sophisticated laboratories are not readily available.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"21\"\/><\/p>\n<p><h2>Research to broader impact<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>The path to the finished system had its challenges. Designing good CRISPR guide RNAs was particularly tricky because many candidates that looked good on paper did not work as expected in experiments. Jin had spent weeks testing and tweaking them. He\u2019s interested in more than tuberculosis. He plans to major in biomedical engineering and biochemistry to prepare for a career as a physician-scientist, with the hope of translating laboratory research into useful tools for medicine.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"26\"\/>Outside the lab, Jin captains his varsity swim team and co-presidents his DECA chapter. He also co-founded Project LIFE, a student-led initiative that has grown to over 20 chapters in eight states, with a mission to improve education and access to the bone marrow registry.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"28\"\/>His M-CATCH platform could eventually be adapted to detect other infectious diseases and possibly even cancer, suggesting a future where a small blood sample could reveal far more than a single diagnosis.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"30\"\/>Images Courtesy: Davidson Institute<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/world\/us\/meet-austin-jin-the-16-year-old-great-neck-new-york-student-who-built-a-crispr-blood-test-to-detect-tuberculosis-and-drug-resistance-he-won-50000\/articleshow\/134262216.cms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Outside the lab, Jin captains his varsity swim team and co-presidents his DECA chapter. He also co-founded Project LIFE, a student-led initiative that has grown to over 20 chapters in eight states, with a mission to improve education and access to the bone marrow registry. Most teenagers go to a pathology office for a blood [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24844,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-31"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/outside-the-lab-jin-captains-his-varsity-swim-team-and-co-presidents-his-deca-chapter-he-also-co-fou-150x150.avif","medium":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/outside-the-lab-jin-captains-his-varsity-swim-team-and-co-presidents-his-deca-chapter-he-also-co-fou-300x169.avif","medium_large":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/outside-the-lab-jin-captains-his-varsity-swim-team-and-co-presidents-his-deca-chapter-he-also-co-fou.avif","large":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/outside-the-lab-jin-captains-his-varsity-swim-team-and-co-presidents-his-deca-chapter-he-also-co-fou.avif","1536x1536":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/outside-the-lab-jin-captains-his-varsity-swim-team-and-co-presidents-his-deca-chapter-he-also-co-fou.avif","2048x2048":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/outside-the-lab-jin-captains-his-varsity-swim-team-and-co-presidents-his-deca-chapter-he-also-co-fou.avif","blogsy-small":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/outside-the-lab-jin-captains-his-varsity-swim-team-and-co-presidents-his-deca-chapter-he-also-co-fou.avif","blogsy-small-tall":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/outside-the-lab-jin-captains-his-varsity-swim-team-and-co-presidents-his-deca-chapter-he-also-co-fou.avif","blogsy-small-square":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/outside-the-lab-jin-captains-his-varsity-swim-team-and-co-presidents-his-deca-chapter-he-also-co-fou.avif","blogsy-small-masonry":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/outside-the-lab-jin-captains-his-varsity-swim-team-and-co-presidents-his-deca-chapter-he-also-co-fou.avif","blogsy-medium":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/outside-the-lab-jin-captains-his-varsity-swim-team-and-co-presidents-his-deca-chapter-he-also-co-fou.avif","blogsy-medium-masonry":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/outside-the-lab-jin-captains-his-varsity-swim-team-and-co-presidents-his-deca-chapter-he-also-co-fou.avif","blogsy-large":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/outside-the-lab-jin-captains-his-varsity-swim-team-and-co-presidents-his-deca-chapter-he-also-co-fou.avif","blogsy-wide":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/outside-the-lab-jin-captains-his-varsity-swim-team-and-co-presidents-his-deca-chapter-he-also-co-fou.avif"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"admin","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8709732a479614e7a8aa24d3eb1b239f30dc6d90c61464ed495001e7a469d856?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"Outside the lab, Jin captains his varsity swim team and co-presidents his DECA chapter. He also co-founded Project LIFE, a student-led initiative that has grown to over 20 chapters in eight states, with a mission to improve education and access to the bone marrow registry. 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