Rickettsiae Detection Dipstick

To address the U.S. Army need for a hand-held, field-usable assay capable of diagnosing rickettsial disease in sick soldiers to aid early treatment with the appropriate antibiotic, Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to complete the development of a new Rickettsiae Detection Dipstick (RDD). The RDD is a hand-held device based on a combination of lateral-flow immunochromatography technology and lab-on-chip principles. The RDD assay will rapidly (10 min) distinguish rickettsia antigens/pathogens in the spotted fever group (SFG) from typhus group (TG) in a blood sample. The RDD will be inexpensive, portable, and easy to use in a one-step protocol with at least 85% of the sensitivity and 85% of the specificity of current gold-standard assays. The device will use heat-stable reagents, have no special storage requirements, and require no power to operate. In Phase I POC demonstrated the feasibility of the RDD device by fabricating a prototype and demonstrating its capability to identify and differentiate inactivated rickettsia from SFG and TG spiked into porcine blood at concentrations