SBIR Phase 1 Diagnostics to enable malaria and neglected tropical diseases

While significant progress has been made in reducing malaria prevalence and deathsmalaria elimination remains a difficult goalSelection pressures have driven malaria transmitting mosquitos to new behaviorsrendering vector control methods less effectiveMass drug administration without diagnosis can increase the risk of developing drug resistanceAdditionallyPfalciparum and Pvivax species of malaria parasiteswhich account forof all human malaria infectionsfollow a different course of disease and hence the treatment regimen differsPvivax requires an additional drug to eliminate a liver stage which causes disease relapseContinued progress toward malaria elimination must also include development of sensitive diagnostics that are rapidaffordableand able to distinguish Pvivax infections in order tomass screen andtreatsymptomatic and asymptomatic carriers of malariaThe proposed project advances our current rapid malaria detection devicewhich detects the presence of any malaria parasites in patients withaccuracyat a detection threshold ofparasitesLcompared to PCRThis enhanced diagnostic platform will have the ability to differentiate between P falciparum and Pvivax to allow for appropriate treatment and will have a detection threshold ofparasiteL