Raman Iron Biomarker RIB4TB

Tuberculosis (TB) is a significant disease worldwide, with 1.7M deaths and 10M new infections every year. From the Armed Forces"perspective, approximaely 3.5% of all new recruits have latent TB infection, 5-15% of whom may develop active disease in their lifetime. Armed Forces personnel are at particular risk of exposure to Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb) given their deployments to endemic areas. Rapid screening/diagnostics tests are therefore necessary for both active and latent TB, but current tests have important limitations. We have developed a new technique based on Raman spectroscopy for the detection of pathogen viability in clinical samples. Here, we are proposing to adapt that technique to the detection of M.tb in blood, and to apply it for both active and latent TB. In Phase I, we will develop our methods with blood samples inoculated with M. bovis which is sufficiently similar to M.tb, but does not require a BSL 3 facility. In Phase II, we will extend these data and perform further testing to provide supporting data for subsequent regulatory/licensure requirements. Our goal is to develop an accurate, low cost and rapid test for TB that costs $20/sample, and that provides accurate results within 24 hours of sample collection.