Point of Care Sensor for Host Gene Response to Pathogen Infection

PROJECT SUMMARY ABSTRACT Point of Care Sensor for Host Gene Response to Pathogen Infection Respiratory tract infections rank as one of the leading causes of illness and death in the world The lack of rapid easy to use and accurate point of care POC diagnostics for early detection of pathogen infections is a main reason behind inappropriate use of antibiotics and the emergence of antibiotic resistance Important progress has been made in developing FDA approved assays that rely on multiplexed real time polymerase chain reaction RT PCR for qualitative detection of respiratory viruses However these assays are expensive labor intensive and do not provide a sample to answer response time that is fast enough to guide early treatment decisions One promising approach which represents a paradigm shift in pathogen diagnostics involves using blood based gene expression signatures of the patient response to pathogens to detect and discriminate viral infections from bacterial infections To accelerate translation of this approach into clinically use Giner Inc proposes to develop an electrochemical viral respiratory infection sensor for rapid sensitive and selective detection of pathogen specific host RNA expression biomarkers The developed sensor will be designed for cost effective and multiplexed viral infection detection for use in clinical POC and pandemic settings PROJECT NARRATIVE This project aims to develop a diagnostic assay for detecting viral respiratory infections The developed sensor will enable early detection of viral infections and help guide targeted use antiviral and antibiotic drugs The sensor will be designed for accurate and rapid sample to answer response time for use in clinical point of care and pandemic settings