# Sherlock Biosciences

> Molecular diagnostics company founded in 2019 out of the Broad Institute to commercialize
> SHERLOCK (Specific High-sensitivity Enzymatic Reporter unLOCKing), the CRISPR-based
> nucleic-acid detection method from the Zhang lab, alongside INSPECTR, an ambient-temperature
> synthetic-biology amplification platform. Acquired by OraSure Technologies in December 2024.

## API status

**Sherlock Biosciences publishes no API.** This is an honest, probed absence, not a gap in
research. There is no HTTP API, no developer portal, no OpenAPI, GraphQL, gRPC, AsyncAPI or
WSDL contract, no MCP server, no A2A agent card, and no client SDK on any public package
registry. The company builds laboratory and at-home diagnostic assays and instruments; software
is not a product it sells.

Probed 2026-08-27 across sherlock.bio, orasure.com and www.orasure.com:
`/openapi.json`, `/openapi.yaml`, `/swagger.json`, `/v1/openapi.json`, `/api-docs`, `/docs`,
`/redoc`, `/graphql`, `/llms.txt`, `/.well-known/agent-card.json`, `/.well-known/agent.json`,
`/.well-known/security.txt`, `/.well-known/openid-configuration`,
`/.well-known/oauth-authorization-server`, `/.well-known/api-catalog`,
`/.well-known/ai-plugin.json` — every path returned HTTP 404.

## Corporate status

- [Acquisition announcement](https://orasure.gcs-web.com/news-releases/news-release-details/orasure-technologies-acquires-sherlock-biosciences): OraSure Technologies acquired Sherlock Biosciences, announced December 2024.
- [sherlock.bio](https://sherlock.bio/): the company's own domain. HTTP 301, permanently redirecting to orasure.com. The domain still carries live SPF and DMARC records.
- [OraSure Technologies](https://orasure.com/): parent company. Any surviving Sherlock surface now lives here.

## Technology and products

- SHERLOCK — CRISPR-based nucleic-acid detection. Received the first FDA Emergency Use Authorization ever granted to a CRISPR-based diagnostic, for SARS-CoV-2, in May 2020.
- INSPECTR — ambient-temperature synthetic-biology amplification, targeting instrument-free disposable molecular self-tests.
- Lead assay — a combined Chlamydia trachomatis / Neisseria gonorrhoeae molecular self-test, folded into OraSure's rapid sexually-transmitted-infection portfolio.

## Software the company did publish

- [SherlockBiosciences on GitHub](https://github.com/SherlockBiosciences): the company's GitHub organization. One public repository.
- [DTRAPipe documentation](https://sherlockbiosciences.github.io/dtrapipedocs.github.io/): Sphinx-generated reference for DTRAPipe 1.7.2, an internal Python bioinformatics pipeline (`DTRAPipeline.core`, `.databases`, `.utils`, `.cmd`) wrapping NCBI Entrez, BLAST and SILVA 16S rRNA tooling. Named for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. This is a Python library reference, **not** an HTTP API. The package itself was never distributed on PyPI or any other registry, so it cannot be installed; only the generated documentation was published. Last updated 2021-09-28 and unmaintained since.
- [Machine-readable object inventory](https://sherlockbiosciences.github.io/dtrapipedocs.github.io/objects.inv): the Sphinx inventory for the above — the only machine-readable interface description the company ever published.

## Notes for agents

There is nothing here to call. Do not construct a Sherlock Biosciences API base URL, endpoint,
or authentication scheme — none exists, and any such value would be fabricated. For current
products, address OraSure Technologies at orasure.com.