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 Project Grant award of $305,000 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP) program (CFDA 47.084) supports the development of a rapid point-of-care antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) kit by Giant Biosystems Inc., a small business located in Pasadena, CA. The goal is to create an AST platform that can provide actionable results within 6-9 hours from sample collection, as opposed to the 3-5 day turnaround time of current methods. This...
This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the CFDA program titled "NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships" provides $305,000.00 to Resonantia Diagnostics, Inc., a for-profit, veteran-owned small business located in Durham, NC. The award aims to develop a transformative diagnostic platform capable of rapidly identifying pathogens and determining their antimicrobial susceptibility within 60 minutes directly from unprocessed patient samples. This...
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 University of Maryland, College Park was awarded a $490,093 Project Grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) under the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.855) to develop a rapid antibiotic susceptibility testing platform. The technology aims to isolate small numbers of bacteria directly from whole blood, identify bacterial pathogens, and evaluate their antibiotic response within 75 minutes from initial blood draw. This will be...
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 $1,350,312 to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to design and develop a rapid phenotypic drug susceptibility test, termed TRE-DST, for tuberculosis (TB). The TRE-DST system utilizes novel fluorescent trehalose probes to specifically detect live Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) and determine drug...
This Project Grant award from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (CFDA 93.847 Diabetes, Digestive, and Kidney Diseases Extramural Research) totaling $249,951 aims to develop a novel targeted ablation tool called BACTVUE for managing antibiotic-refractory recurrent urinary tract infections (UTIs). The project, conducted by the University of Texas at Dallas, has two primary goals: 1) to demonstrate BACTVUE's ability to selectively stain diverse intracellular...
Nanopath Inc. received a $255,874 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation Division of Industrial Innovation on January 1, 2022 for its "Integrated Point-of-Care System for Rapid Pathogen Identification in Urinary Tract Infections" project. The award is part of the NSF's Engineering program (CFDA 47.041), which seeks to improve quality of life and economic strength through engineering research and education. Under the award, Nanopath will develop an integrated...
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 $300,000 to Baebies, Inc. to develop a rapid, point-of-care diagnostic test that can identify viable sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and help reduce overtreatment and antibiotic resistance. The project aims to create a fully automated, digital microfluidic platform that can provide multiplexed STI pathogen...
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...
RAPID ANTIMICROBIAL SUSCEPTIBILITY TESTING DIRECTLY FROM URINE SPECIMENS - RAPID ANTIMICROBIAL SUSCEPTIBILITY TESTING DIRECTLY FROM PATIENT SPECIMENS ABSTRACT EACH YEAR, 20 MILLION PATIENTS ARE DIAGNOSED WITH INFECTIONS LEADING TO OVER 100,000 DEATHS AND COSTING THE US HEALTHCARE SYSTEM ABOUT $70B. ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANT INFECTIONS ARE INCREASINGLY COMMON, CAUSING ABOUT 3 MILLION INFECTIONS AND 35,000 DEATHS ANNUALLY IN THE US. PATIENTS, EVEN THOSE WITH LIFE-THREATENING INFECTIONS, CAN BE QUICKLY CURED IF, NEAR THE ONSET OF INFECTION, THEY CAN BE TREATED WITH AN ANTIBIOTIC THAT SPECIFICALLY TARGETS THE PATHOGEN CAUSING THE INFECTION. UNFORTUNATELY, TODAY'S DIAGNOSTIC METHODS REQUIRE 2-4 DAYS TO DETERMINE TAR- GETED, OR DEFINITIVE, THERAPIES. FOR THIS REASON, PHYSICIANS MUST TREAT PATIENTS EMPIRICALLY USING BROAD-SPECTRUM ANTIBIOTICS THAT ARE OFTEN LESS EFFECTIVE THAN DEFINITIVE TREATMENTS AND SOMETIMES EVEN COMPLETELY INEFFECTIVE. FURTHERMORE, TREATMENT WITH THESE POWERFUL DRUGS CAUSES THE SPREAD OF ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE. THIS IS EXACERBATED BY THE FACT THAT AT LEAST 30% OF ANTIBIOTICS ARE PRESCRIBED UNNECESSARILY TO PATIENTS THAT ARE IN FACT UNINFECTED. CURRENT ANTIMICROBIAL SUSCEPTIBILITY TESTING METHODS FOR DETERMINING THE DEFINITIVE THERAPIES TAKE DAYS TO DELIVER RESULTS BECAUSE THEY REQUIRE MULTIPLE LENGTHY STEPS INCLUDING A DAY-LONG STEP TO PURIFY THE PATHOGEN CELLS IN LARGE NUMBERS BY MICROBIOLOGICAL CULTURE. THIS PROPOSAL DEVELOPS NOVEL PRODUCTS THAT DETECT WHETHER PATIENTS ARE IN- FECTED, IDENTIFY THE PATHOGEN IN 30 MINUTES, AND DETERMINE THE DEFINITIVE TREATMENT IN JUST A FEW HOURS RATHER THAN THE DAYS REQUIRED TODAY. THE PROPOSED TESTS THUS HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO DRAMATICALLY IMPROVE PATIENT OUT- COMES AND ATTENUATE THE SPREAD OF RESISTANCE. THE NEW TESTS IDENTIFY (ID) PATHOGENS AND PERFORM ANTIMICROBIAL SUSCEPTIBILITY TESTING (AST) DIRECTLY FROM PATIENT SPECIMENS, ELIMINATING THE LENGTHY CULTURE STEPS REQUIRED BY THE CURRENT METHODS. THE NOVEL MULTIPATH TECHNOLOGY UNDERLYING THE TESTS USES INEXPENSIVE DIGITAL IMAGING TO RAPIDLY, SENSITIVELY, AND AFFORDABLY COUNT INDIVIDUAL MICROSCOPIC BACTERIAL CELLS WITHOUT MAGNIFICATION. THE MULTIPATH AST TESTS CAN DETERMINE THE DEFINITIVE TREATMENT FOR A MUCH BROADER RANGE OF INFECTIONS THAN OTHER EMERGING RAPID SUSCEPTIBILITY METHODS BECAUSE THEY CAN DETERMINE ANTIMICROBIAL SUSCEPTIBILITY FOR SPECIMENS WITH COMMENSAL BACTERIA AND FROM PATIENTS WITH POLYMICROBIAL INFECTIONS. THE EASY-TO-USE TESTS RUN ON THE AUTOMATED RANDOM- ACCESS MULTIPATH ANALYZER THAT IS CURRENTLY UNDER REGULATORY REVIEW. THIS PHASE II PROPOSAL DEVELOPS RAPID ID AND AST TESTS FOR URINARY TRACT INFECTIONS (UTIS). UTIS ACCOUNT FOR ABOUT HALF OF ALL INFECTIONS WHICH ARE INCREASINGLY CAUSED BY RESISTANT PATHOGENS. THE PROPOSED WORK BUILDS ON WORK PRESENTED IN THE PRELIMINARY RESULTS DEMON- STRATING THE FEASIBILITY OF AST DIRECTLY FROM URINE SPECIMENS. SPECIFICALLY, WE WILL (1) COMPLETE UTI ID/AST PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT; (2) COMPLETE ALPHA UTI/AST ANALYTICAL AND PRECLINICAL STUDIES; AND (3) COMPLETE EXTERNAL BETA PRE- CLINICAL STUDIES AND PREPARE FOR REGULATORY SUBMISSION. COMPLETION OF THE PROPOSED PROJECT WILL DELIVER MULTIPATH UTI ID/AST TESTS READY FOR VERIFICATION AND VALIDATION STUDIES FOR REGULATORY SUBMISSION IN PHASE III.