RAPID DIAGNOSIS OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES

NEW DNA DIAGNOSTIC TESTS WILL PERMIT THE RAPID, ACCURATE, SENSITIVE, AND INEXPENSIVE DIAGNOSIS OF A WIDE VARIETY OF DISEASES WITHOUT GROWTH, EXPRESSION OF SPECIFIC CELL FUNC- TION, OR PRODUCTION OF SPECIFIC PROTEINS BY THE AGENT. FUR-THERMORE, POSITIVE IDENTIFICATION IS INDEPENDENT OF ANTIGEN-IC VARIATION, PROTEIN DEGRADATION, MASKING BY HOST ANTIBOD IES, CROSS REACTIVITY OF TEST ANTIBODIES, OR OTHER PROBLEMS WHICH LIMIT ANTIBODY METHODS. THE MAJOR FACTOR WHICH HAS LIMITED DNA DIAGNOSTICS IN CLINICAL SETTINGS IS THE GENERAL REQUIREMENT FOR 32P OR 125I LABELED PROBES. THIS PROPOSAL REVIEWS THE LITERATURE DOCUMENTING THE EFFICA CY OF DNA DIAGNOSIS AND THE CURRENTLY AVAILABLE NONISOTOPICLABELS, AND PRESENTS PRELIMINARY FINDINGS ON A NEW NONISOTOPIC LABELING PROCEDURE. THIS PROCEDURE IS RLATIVELY RAPID, REQUIRES LESS TOXIC AND LESS EXPENSIVE REAGENTS, APPEARS MORE RELIABLE, AND HAS A SENSITIVITY WHICH IS AT LWAST AS HIGH AS THE PREVIOUSLY REPORTED NONISOTOPIC METHODS. THIS PHASE I CONTRACT PROPOSES WORK TO CONFIRM OUR PRELIM- INARY FINDINGS, COMPARE THIS TECHNIQUE TO OTHER LABELING [PROCEDURES, OPTIMIZE NONISOTOPIC LABELING, AND CONDUCT HYBRIDIZATION EXPERIMENTS TO DETECT NUCLEIC ACIDS OF DNA VIRUSES, RNA VIRUSES, AND BACTERIA. IN PHASE II, WE WILL USE THESE METHODS TO DETECT ORGANISN IN A VARIETY OF CLINICAL SPECIMENS.