Background
High throughput approaches to genomics, proteomics and the measurement of other analytes, coupled with novel technologies of miniaturization and highly parallel detection create the possibility of radically new ways to detect and diagnose health and disease states in an individual, even in remote or impoverished settings.
Roadblock
Lack of convenient accurate point-of-care assessment tools in the developing world, means that many health risks and illnesses remain poorly defined and receive inappropriate treatment. In addition, little information about the burden of disease is available to guide population health decisions.
Challenge
To develop and optimize the needed performance characteristics of novel, accurate, feasible technologies for achieving definitive point-of-care assessment of individuals’ health status, including robust, simple-to-use technologies for achieving parallel, open-ended, multi-pathogen and reliable and valid clinical measures in developing world settings.
Potential Benefits
- Unequivocal identification of pathogen type and subtype and drug sensitivity profile
- Rapid assessment of susceptibility and immunity to health threats
- Rapid diagnosis of exposure and disease
- Rapid detection of emerging pathogens
- Rapid parallel diagnosis of multiple infectious agents
- Accurate assessment of disease stage and prognosis
- Better detection and management of outbreaks and emerging acute and chronic health threats
- Quantification of disease incidence in endemic countries