Respiratory Infection Detection (R-ID) assay

Infectious diseases are one of the major causes of global morbidity and mortality, resulting in 16.2% of deaths per year. Currently, there is no fast diagnostic tool available to detect and identify the different pathogens responsible for the most common infections, which leads to unnecessary prescription of antibiotics and the subsequent development of drug-resistant strains. LIG Biowise are developing an innovative Respiratory Infection Detection (R-ID) assay. The assay will combine targeted pathogen lysis with in situ amplification of pathogen DNA to detect a panel of common respiratory pathogens in 45-60 min. The R-ID assay will have the potential of becoming a core technology for future precision treatments of microbial infections as it will be applicable at the point-of-care and it will not require costly equipment or advanced technical expertise. This grant will support a 12-month feasibility study aimed to develop the pathogen detection methods for the R-ID assay.