This Project Grant award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), under the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.855), provides $490,093 to the University of Maryland, College Park to develop a rapid, culture-free technology for antibiotic susceptibility testing. The award will fund the creation of a microfluidic platform that can isolate bacteria directly from whole blood, identify the pathogen, and evaluate its response to antibiotics...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $305,000 Project Grant under the NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP) program (CFDA 47.084) to Giant Biosystems Inc., a small disadvantaged and woman-owned business in Pasadena, CA. The grant will fund the development of a novel microfluidic platform for rapid and precise antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST). The goal is to create a point-of-care AST kit that can provide results within 6-9 hours, significantly faster than...
This $991,832 Cooperative Agreement awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (CFDA 47.084) program supports the development of a novel rapid antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST) platform by Astek Diagnostics Inc., a minority-owned small business in Halethorpe, Maryland. The project aims to adapt the company's previously developed urine cartridge technology for use with cerebrospinal fluid and wound effluent specimens, characterize...
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) awarded a $299,170 Project Grant under the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research (CFDA 93.855) program to Latde Diagnostics Corp., a woman-owned small business, to develop a rapid, equitable, lateral flow-based antibiotic susceptibility test (AST) for urinary tract infections (UTIs). The goal of this Phase I project is to demonstrate the feasibility of the Metabolic Amino Acid Phenotyping (MAAP) test kit to provide rapid AST...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (CFDA 47.084) Project Grant award of $275,000 aims to develop a platform for detecting genetic antibiotic resistance motifs that can predict current and future susceptibility to therapeutics. The project will establish the feasibility of leveraging mutational signatures in bacterial DNA to identify antibiotic resistance status, including the potential for rapid development of multi-drug resistance. This approach...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (CFDA 47.084) Cooperative Agreement award of $984,381 to Cobio Diagnostics Inc. in Aurora, Colorado aims to expand a diagnostic tool that enables rapid, direct-from-specimen identification and antimicrobial susceptibility testing of major bloodborne bacterial pathogens. The project will develop a regulatory pathway for FDA clearance, characterize antibodies to expand the test, and validate the expanded tests...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (CFDA 47.084) Project Grant award supports the development of a novel device that can rapidly and automatically extract pathogen DNA from whole blood samples to enable faster diagnosis of sepsis. The $274,858 award to New England Hemolytics, Inc., with a project period from September 1, 2024 to February 28, 2025, will fund the testing and optimization of this technology across common sepsis-causing pathogens. The...
This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Integrative Activities (IA) program provides $275,000 to Clemson University to develop a flexible, tunable voltammetric sensor that can rapidly detect and quantify virulence signals from the Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria. The goal is to enable faster determination of infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which annually lead to more than 35,000 deaths in the U.S. despite widespread antibiotic availability. The...
This Project Grant award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), under the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.855), aims to develop new antimicrobial agents and combination therapies to combat the growing threat of Gram-negative bacterial pathogens, specifically carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (CRAB) and Klebsiella pneumoniae (CRKP). The $2,308,174 award, with a performance period from August 2024 to May 2029, will fund three...
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) awarded a $1,350,312 Project Grant under the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.855) to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to develop a rapid phenotypic drug susceptibility testing system for tuberculosis (TB). The project aims to create and optimize novel fluorescent trehalose probes that can detect live Mycobacterium tuberculosis and assess drug resistance, addressing critical limitations...
EXCLUSIVE LIQUID REPELLENCY ENABLES NEXT-GENERATION PHENOTYPIC ANTIMICROBIAL SUSCEPTIBILITY TESTING - PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT RAPID IDENTIFICATION AND ANTIMICROBIAL SUSCEPTIBILITY TESTING (AST) OF CLINICAL ISOLATES ARE CRUCIAL TO ENSURE EARLY APPROPRIATE TREATMENT AND PREVENT MISUSE OF BROAD-SPECTRUM ANTIMICROBIALS. BOTH PHENOTYPIC (I.E., GROWTH, INHIBITION, OR KILLING EVENT-BASED) AND MOLECULAR (I.E., RESISTANT GENE OR MOLECULE-BASED) ASTS ARE ROUTINELY USED IN THE HOSPITAL CLINICAL MICROBIOLOGY LABORATORY. THE LIMITATIONS OF MOLECULAR METHODS (E.G., QPCR, MALDI-TOF MS) INCLUDE THEIR NARROW SCOPE (I.E., SELECT RESISTANCE GENES/MOLECULES), OR IN SOME CASES THE INABILITY TO PREDICT ANTIMICROBIAL SUSCEPTIBILITY, WHILE PHENOTYPIC METHODS INVOLVE TIME-CONSUMING, MULTI-STEP EXPANSION CULTURE RESULTING IN PROLONGED TIME TO RESULT, WHICH CAN DELAY APPROPRIATE TREATMENT DECISIONS. THIS PROPOSAL LEVERAGES AN EXCLUSIVE LIQUID REPELLENCY (ELR) BASED UNDER-OIL OPEN MICROFLUIDIC SYSTEM FOR A TRANSFORMATIVE APPROACH TO NEXT-GENERATION PHENOTYPIC ASTS. WITH A MULTIDISCIPLINARY TEAM INCLUDING CLINICIANS, MICROBIOLOGISTS/PHARMACOLOGISTS, SURFACE SCIENTISTS, AND BIOENGINEERS, WE OUTLINE THREE AIMS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THIS NEXT-GENERATION, PHENOTYPIC AST SYSTEM. THE ELR-BASED AST SYSTEM AIMS TO MEET THE FOLLOWING CRITERIA: I) DIRECT AST USING THE ORIGINAL CLINICAL ISOLATES (E.G., FROM BLOOD, SPUTUM, URINE, ABSCESS) TO ELIMINATE TIME-CONSUMING EXPANSION CULTURE AND PASSAGE- ASSOCIATED SELECTION BIAS EX VIVO, II) COMPREHENSIVE TEST COVERAGE INCLUDING ANAEROBES, MULTISPECIES COMMUNITIES, HETERORESISTANCE (I.E., RESISTANT MUTANTS WITHIN THE WILD-TYPE POPULATION), AND III) RAPID AST WITH THE GOAL OF SAMPLE TO REPORT IN LESS THAN 4 HOURS. IN AIM 1 WE PROPOSE TO DEVELOP ELR-CENTRIFUGATION AND SMALL-VOLUME ( M L SCALE) LOSSLESS SAMPLE PROCESSING FOR ISOLATION, ENRICHMENT, AND PREPARATION OF SPARSE (I.E., 1-100 CFU/ML) BACTERIA FROM WHOLE BLOOD. THE GOAL IS TO DIRECTLY ISOLATE AND ENRICH BACTERIA FROM WHOLE BLOOD WITHOUT EXPANSION CULTURE. WE WILL COMBINE THE LOSSLESS SAMPLE PROCESSING ENABLED BY ELR WITH LYSIS-CENTRIFUGATION TO MAXIMIZE THE RECOVERY YIELD OF BACTERIA (> 90%) FROM WHOLE BLOOD. IN AIM 2 WE WILL DEMONSTRATE COMPATIBILITY OF ELR AST WITH INTRINSIC FLUORESCENCE LABEL FREE IMAGING MODALITIES AND DEEP LEARNING-BASED IDENTIFICATION. THE GOAL IS TO DEVELOP AND APPLY PROOF-OF- CONCEPT ADVANCED LABEL-FREE, SINGLE-CELL RESOLUTION, LIVE-CELL IMAGING, AND DEEP LEARNING ALGORITHMS TO INTEGRATE BACTERIAL DETECTION, SPECIES IDENTIFICATION, AND ANTIMICROBIAL SCREENING THEREBY ELIMINATING ISOLATE PASSAGE EXPANSION. IN AIM 3 WE PROPOSE TO DEVELOP LABEL-FREE, DIRECT DETECTION OF HETERORESISTANCE IN PRIORITY HUMAN PATHOGENS IN CLINICAL ISOLATES. THE GOAL IS TO DETECT HETERORESISTANCE [I.E., A SMALL/RARE SUBPOPULATION (E.G.,