A smartphone-based point-of-care test for detection of influenza in low resource settings

Each yearinfluenza causes more thanhospitalizations and aboutdeaths in the U SPeriodicallypandemic strains of influenza emerge that cause even greater devastationthe most recent H Npandemic ofcausingdeaths in the U SDiagnostic testing for influenza is a critical component in managing the diseaseit offers data used in global influenza surveillance efforts and can help guide the treatment of individual patientsUnfortunatelythe currentgold standardinfluenza diagnostics can take days to deliver a resultfar beyond the two day window of opportunity for antiviral drugs to have a therapeutic effectFaster flu tests are either not very accurate or are too expensive for low resource settingsthereby limiting accessibilityThis project will adapt Luminosticsinexpensivesmartphone enabled technology platform for rapid diagnosticscalledCLIPto rapidly and accurately detect influenza with an equivalent or higher accuracy and lower cost than other testsThis productCLIP Fluwill accurately distinguish between influenza and other respiratory pathogenssuch as respiratory syncytial virusRSVIn this Phase I projectLuminostics will identify optimal affinity reagents to be used in CLIP Fluoptimize the assay parametersand test the resulting assay in a retrospective clinical evaluation