Infectious Disease

Ranjan Nanda and Virander Chauhan of the International Centre for Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology in India will gather breath samples from tuberculosis patients and use gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) to identify and track unique molecules such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that might serve as biomarkers to diagnose tuberculosis. The overall goal is to then create a handheld "electronic nose" to diagnose the disease in resource-poor settings.

Babak Javid of Tsinghua University School of Medicine in China will determine whether drugs that increase the accuracy of protein production in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which causes TB, can boost the effect of existing TB drugs and thereby shorten the current 6 month treatment period. They hypothesized that resistance to TB drugs is caused in part by the ability of the bacterium to change its proteins by making random errors during their synthesis (known as mistranslation).

Dan Luo of Cornell University in the U.S. proposes a "self-amplifying-DNA-polymer" system in which monomers bind to specific pathogen biomarkers and then create polymer aggregates when exposed to light. This amplification step, to be used as a component for future diagnostic devices, is totally enzyme-free and only occurs in the presence of specific pathogens.

Besik Kankia of the Ohio State University in the U.S. proposes to develop isothermal amplification of nucleic acids using a simple fluorescence detection method. If successful, the fluorescence signal will be detected by a portable fluorimeter or by eye after excitation with an appropriate light source.

James Heath of the California Institute of Technology in the U.S. will work to develop protein catalyzed capture agents, which are synthetically-created peptides that may act as drop-in replacements for antibodies in diagnostic assays. These agents, designed to be stable up to 40°C for extended periods, aim to be as sensitive as antibodies, but due to their chemical structure, more easily transported, stored, and used in various diagnostic platforms in developing world settings.

David Beebe and researchers at the University of Wisconsin in the U.S. propose to develop a "universal" sample purification platform that readily adapts to various upstream collection components and utilizes an immiscible phase (e.g. oil, wax) barrier to produce a "clean" sample for output to downstream amplification and detection components.

Rebecca Richards-Kortum and Tomasz Tkaczyk of Rice University in the U.S. propose to develop a plug-and-sense read-out and signal transduction (ROST) component for point-of-care devices that will be palm-sized, producible for under $10, and with new interrogation units can be rearranged within the universal fixture to accommodate new sample platforms.

Luke Lee of the University of California, Berkeley in the U.S. proposes to develop a microfluidic sample preparation module using electrical and physical methods that will be compatible with different sample inputs and downstream analytical techniques to provide both plasma and cellular biomarkers for the parallel diagnoses of infectious diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria. The device will not require external reagents, will have low power consumption, and can be operated on-site with minimal training.

Ann Vinckier and colleagues at QIAGEN in the U.S. propose to further improve their commercially available small fluorescence tube scanner for its use at the point-of-care in developing countries, and also investigate probe-based isothermal amplification technologies for the development of fast, sensitive, specific and robust detection of nucleic acids in point-of-care diagnostic tools.

Andrew Ellington of the University of Texas at Austin in the U.S. proposes to improve enzyme-free DNA circuits by engineering circuit sensitivity and selectivity, ultimately creating multi-layered circuits that greatly amplify signal inputs. These robust amplifiers could be modularly introduced into a variety of point-of-care diagnostics.