Quantification of Circulating Mtb Antigens for Rapid TB Diagnosis and Treatment Monitoring
Abstract
TB is considered to be among the most dangerous health threats to military men and women deployed to overseas battlefields and humanitarian missions. Time-consuming culture tests are still commonly used for TB diagnosis and to identify drug-resistant TB cases in much of the world. A rapid, easy-to-use and reliable diagnostic platform is therefore highly needed to allow rapid TB diagnosis and treatment of military forces in harsh environmental conditions, such as war zones. With the support of the CDMRP award, a translational research team, including the engineering lab at Tulane University, the clinician scientists at Baylor College of Medicine and NanoPin Technologies, Inc., aim to develop a nanoparticle-based approach to address the issues associated with detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb)-derived factors in human blood samples. This diagnostic platform can rapidly and sensitively detect and quantitate TB antigen levels directly from blood samples and provides quantitative results to allow prompt diagnosis and rapid evaluation of a patients response to treatment. Ultimately, this proposal seeks to leverage our recent success in molecular diagnostics and biomedical nanotechnologies to produce a portable point-of-care diagnostic platform that has the potential to markedly improve TB treatment and control by improving the accuracy, speed and cost of TB diagnosis and treatment monitoring. If successful, our strategy should have a significant impact on populations in developing countries as well as military personnel deployed to areas where this disease is prevalent.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2020
- Accession Number
- AD1138285
Entities
People
- Ye Hu
Organizations
- Tulane University of Louisiana