Project Lead(s): Roozbeh Safavieh
Issue
Lymphatic filariasis (LF) or elephantiasis is a parasitic chronic disease that is endemic in developing countries throughout the world (120 million infected and one billion at risk).
Infection is transmitted through mosquito bites. The larvae enter the blood stream and migrate to lymph vessels.
Adult worms affect various parts of the body through lymphatic systems.
Solution
The idea was to make a low-cost, highly sensitive, easy-to-use diagnostic tool for the detection of lymphatic filariasis.
Early stage detection of the disease reduces the morbidity rate and prevents permanent damage to internal organs.
A biosensor was developed for rapid differential diagnosis of disease states by immunoassays.
The biosensor consists of a liquid-handling microchip (LHM) module and an analyzer. The disposable liquid-handling microchip performs all the liquid-handling operations by capillary effects only.
The chip is entirely self-powered, self-contained and self-regulated, and does not need any external pump or valve for its operation.
The operation of the LHM was designed for performing the immunoassay and measuring the concentration of the OG4C3 Antigen.
Outcome
A biosensor was developed that can measure the concentration of OG4C3 Antigen, and the team demonstrated that the device can be used for diagnosis of lymphatic filariasis at its early stage.
Doctors or patients can measure the concentration of protein disease biomarker down to 3 ng/ml in 15 minutes.
The biosensor is scalable and, with the current design, the LHM can be mass produced at $0.50 per chip, and the overall biosensor can be mass-produced below $0.60.
The biosensor has been integrated with a portable battery-powered optical (OEM) analyzer and the team has demonstrated that they can measure the concentration of disease markers using the analyzer, which can potentially be mass produced for $200.
Results of this work have not been disseminated in order to protect intellectual property rights in the technology.
The team plans to apply for Phase II Transition To Scale funding.