CLIPON: A CRISPR‐Enabled Strategy that Turns Commercial Pregnancy Test Strips into General Point‐of‐Need Test Devices

Abstract Desirable biosensing assays need to be sensitive, specific, cost‐effective, instrument‐free, and versatile. Herein we report a new strategy termed CLIPON ( C RISPR and L arge DNA assembly I nduced P regnancy strips for signal‐ ON detection) that can deliver these traits. CLIPON integrates a commercial pregnancy test strip (PTS) with four biological elements: the human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), CRISPR‐Cas12a, crRNA and c auliflower‐like l arge‐sized D NA assemblies (CLD). CLIPON uses the Cas12a/crRNA complex both to recognize a target of interest and to release CLD‐bound hCG so that target presence can translate into a colorimetric signal on the PTS. We demonstrate the versatility of CLIPON through sensitive and specific detection of HPV genomic DNA, SARS‐CoV‐2 genomic RNA and adenosine. We also engineer a cell phone app and a hand‐held microchip to achieve signal quantification. CLIPON represents an attractive option for biosensing and point‐of‐care diagnostics.