With nearly 20 million new infections annually, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are very common in the United States. And with recent changes to the national health care landscape, including the passage of the Affordable Care Act and state budget cuts resulting in the closure of STD and HIV clinics, primary care providers can expect to encounter more patients with STDs. For women and infants, STDs can have serious and long-term consequences, including infertility, facilitation of HIV infection, reproductive trac cancer, pelvic inflammatory disease, and poor perinatal outcomes. STDs cost the US health care system nearly $16 billion every year. The ability to obtain easily available and sensitive Nucleic Acid Based Point Of Care (POC) tests in primary care clinics and inner city clinics may have a far reaching impact on the rates of STDs in this country. From modeling and cost-benefit analyses the bottom line for rapid, accurate, sensitive diagnostic tests is clear - when we have them, we should use them. We propose to develop rapid, accurate, sensitive and cost effective Nucleic Acid based POC system to fulfill the unmet market needs. The system can be readily expanded to include other tests in the future including HIV-Viral load, Hepatitis, Syphilis, MGen, HPV and BV.
Public Health Relevance Statement: Public Health Relevance: The proposed technology will have a significant commercial market worldwide for diagnosing infectious diseases including sexually transmitted diseases in non-traditional settings, urinary tract infections in physician's office, as well as for diagnosing bloodstream infections in emergency departments/ICUs. Sensitive identification of pathogens can be provided quickly and that, along with information on antimicrobial susceptibility patterns, can be life-saving or shorten the course of the infection considerably.
Project Terms: Accident and Emergency department; Address; Affordable Care Act; Alabama; Antimicrobial susceptibility; Archives; Area; assay development; Bacterial Vaginosis; base; Biological Assay; Biometry; Budgets; Caliber; care systems; Caring; Chlamydia; Clinic; Clinical; communicable disease diagnosis; Communicable Diseases; Communities; cost effective; Cost of Illness; Cost-Benefit Analysis; Country; County; cross reactivity; Custom; Cyclopentane; design; Detection; Diagnosis; Diagnostic; Diagnostic tests; Disease; DNA; Epidemiology; Evaluation; Exhibits; experience; follow-up; Future; Gonorrhea; Health; Healthcare; Healthcare Systems; Hepatitis; HIV; HIV Infections; Human Papillomavirus; human subject; Individual; Infant; Infection; Infertility; inner city; innovation; Laboratories; Laboratory Research; Laboratory Scientists; Licensing; Life; Malignant Neoplasms; Marketing; Medicine; Modeling; nanoscale; National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases; Nucleic Acid Amplification Tests; nucleic acid detection; Nucleic Acid Probes; Nucleic Acids; Ophthalmology; Optics; Organic Chemistry; Organism; pathogen; Pathogenesis; Patients; Pattern; Pelvic Inflammatory Disease; Peptide Nucleic Acids; perinatal outcomes; Physician Executives; Physicians' Offices; Population; Primary Health Care; professor; Provider; public health relevance; reproductive; Research; Research Personnel; Ribosomal RNA; Sampling; Sepsis; Sexually Transmitted Diseases; Simplexvirus; Source; Specificity; Statistical Data Interpretation; Swab; Syphilis; System; Technology; Test Result; Testing; TimeLine; Trichomonas; Trichomonas Infections; Trichomonas vaginalis; United States; Universities; Urinary tract infection; Vagina; Validation; Viral Load result; Visit; Woman
