Georgia high schoolers are using gene editing technology to diagnose Lyme disease faster

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Lambert High School student Claire Lee works in the school's iGEM lab.

Credit: Georgia Public Broadcasting

The bell rings and a hallway eight students wide fills with comfortably dressed teenagers changing classes. Some are carrying milk cartons and snacks as they move through the school’s main thoroughfare. 

With about 3,700 students, this is the largest public school in Forsyth County and one of the largest in the state, and Lambert High School has the only or iGEM — International Genetically Engineered Machine — lab in Georgia. 

The students in the Lambert iGEM lab may have found a faster way to detect Lyme disease, a tick-borne illness that affects half a million Americans annually. They did it using the revolutionary gene editing technique known as CRISPR. 

Lambert Principal Amanda Thrower said the students went further and included a therapeutic component to their project, too.

"It just shows where their hearts are in the work, which to me is just everything because it's a combination of their brilliance and their character, right?" she said. "That's what you want as parents for your children. It's obviously what we want as educators."

Competition is fierce to get into the iGEM program, where Kate Sharer has been program adviser for the last three years. 

"We are lucky so many students at Lambert are so interested in joining this team that we actually this year had 96 applicants," she said. "We only had room for 10 spots on the competition team."

The students are brilliant, funny and they work well together, she said.

"So, part of this experience is not just being smart," Sharer said. "You can do science fair and just be super smart. It's collaborating and working together almost the way that a startup would."

The final product works like a COVID test.

"A small strip gives you a band, tells you if you've got Lyme disease," Sharer said.

This year’s work was judged at the Grand Jamboree in Paris alongside projects from around the world. 

Avani Karthik, one of the team captains, said they chose Lyme disease because of its prevalence on the East Coast and the lack of diagnostic tools. 

"The main reason for that is because the bacteria, it's transmitted by ticks," Karthik said. "And so when the tick bites you and the bacteria goes into your bloodstream, it quickly disseminates into your joint or cardiac tissue. And that makes it really hard to detect."

Current tests rely on antibodies that are created by the body about three weeks after infection. Karthik said this diagnostic could be applied to any disease that has proteins in the blood.

"We're thinking of using it in emergency rooms in different hospitals because they really do need a rapid diagnostic," Karthik said. "We hope that we can also expand to national parks and areas like that."

Sharer said they have received calls from people interested in supporting the students' work, but the iGEM lab doesn't have a manufacturing facility and can't do clinical trials.

"We'll be in touch with people that can help us navigate this," she said. "I hope that this is something someone would pick up and use. I think it could be helpful. At least what we were able to do in our lab looks like it works. I would love to see it work for real."