Sang-Yeon Cho and Immo Hansen of New Mexico State University in the U.S. seeks to develop a malaria test that measures antibody-antigen reactions through a nanohole to indicate the presence of malaria parasites.
Gilbert Pacey of Miami University in the U.S. will develop a novel diagnostic platform to capture biomarkers in nanoholes. The goal is to produce a simple diagnostic device that reads non-invasive samples and requires no reagents or additional equipment.
Guigen Zhang of Clemson University in the US will exploit the capacitive effect of the electrical double layer as an analytical principle to develop low-cost diagnostic tools. This work will lead to highly sensitive and specific and direct-molecule-interfacing biosensors that are inexpensive to build, simple to use, and rugged to deploy.
Ethan Lerner of Massachusetts General Hospital in the U.S. will attempt to reverse engineer in vitro G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs), which usually are used by the human body to sense light, odors, tastes and hormones, to detect selected parasite biomarkers. If successful, these engineered receptors could be used to develop a diagnostic sensor for infectious agents.
Shan Wang of Stanford University in the U.S. will refine a prototype diagnostic platform which uses GMR sensors, commonly used in hard disk drives, to detect proteins labeled with magnetic nanoparticles. By employing GMR sensors on disposable "NanoLab" sticks, Wang and his team hope to produce an easy to use, ultraportable diagnostic device for rapid point-of-care HIV screening in the developing world.
Eugene Chan of the DNA Medicine Institute in the U.S. proposes to develop a battery-powered non-invasive finger scanner to detect and measure hemozoin, a byproduct formed by malaria parasites, through the finger's capillaries. If successful, mass manufacturing of the scanner should be possible due to basic components.
Mark Mescher, Consuelo De Moraes and Andrew Read of Pennsylvania State University in the U.S. will test the theory that malaria infection induces characteristic odor cues, even in asymptomatic individuals. By identifying these chemical cues with gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, they will determine if there are biomarkers for diagnosis of infection that could be used to develop a diagnostic to aid in eradication of malaria. This project's Phase I research showed that malaria does produce characteristic odor cues, including several that change through the course of infection.
Keith Dunning of the Millennium Health Microscope Foundation in the United Kingdom will develop a fluorescent variation of a new hand-held, low-cost microscope. Specimens such as Malaria parasites or Tuberculosis bacterium will become fluorescent at specific wavelengths thus easy to detect at low magnifications using this new palm-sized microscope.
Quan Liu of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore proposes to use magnetic nanoparticles with blood samples to attract and amplify hemozoin, a byproduct of malaria parasites found in infected red blood cells. Liu will use resonance Raman scattering (RSS) to observe and quantify the hemozoin for a simplified, rapid diagnosis of malaria.
Carol Holm-Hansen of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health in Norway, along with an international consortium of partners, seeks to develop a simple saliva-based assay test for the diagnosis of Tuberculosis. Serum samples from around the world will be collected to identify and select antigens that characterize the many strains of the bacteria for use in this new diagnostic method.