CLIENT: CLinic-based Infection Examination through Nucleic acid Technology
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Southampton
Department Name: Sch of Chemistry
Abstract
The paradigm for the diagnosis of sexually transmitted infections (STI analysis) currently involves utilising the sensitivity and specificity achieved through nucleic acid detection methodologies (detecting the DNA or RNA from the pathogen). This requires sending clinical samples to remote laboratory facilities which have the required sophisticated and expensive instrumentation. The ideal innovation in this field is to enable diagnosis and treatment ('test and treat') within a single visit to the clinic whilst the patient briefly waits for the diagnosis. In the CLIENT project we plan to transform this old paradigm by implementing an innovative combination of novel science and technology to deliver a simple to use, rapid, inexpensive, Point-of-Care (POC) analysis system for STIs. The project will achieve this by bringing together 4 different creative contributions involving:i)the latest fluorescent colour chemistries which are compatible with the probe-based detection technology to be deployed (HyBeacon probes), especially chemistries with low background noise to greatly improve detection sensitivity for positive clinical samples.ii) the most adaptable of probe technologies already trialed in direct sampling studies of chlamydia (and gonnorhoea) from urine and swabs in PCR reactions, and separately proven to function in the necessarily faster unithermal amplification methods that will be used.iii) a proven inexpensive desktop amplification and fluorescence detection instrument that is compatible with the above HyBeacon probe technology which will be further developed to analyse multiple infective agents simultaneously (multiplex analysis).iv) an expert STI research and clinical department that is currently testing thousands of samples a year.The collaborators in this project are all based in the UK, the underlying technology was invented in the UK and the key background IP is owned by the industrial partners on this project.The industry partners have sales routes to market already established or in hand.
People |
ORCID iD |
Tom Brown (Principal Investigator) | |
Ian Clarke (Co-Investigator) |
Publications
French DJ
(2015)
Synthesis and use of universal sequence probes in fluorogenic multi-strand hybridisation complexes for economical nucleic acid testing.
in Molecular and cellular probes
Howard RL
(2015)
Rapid detection of diagnostic targets using isothermal amplification and HyBeacon probes--a homogenous system for sequence-specific detection.
in Molecular and cellular probes
Description | We have developed new methods of rapidly analysing human urine samples for chlamydia based on HyBeacon probes. |
Exploitation Route | Screening of patients for chlamydia in the clinic. This will be done by the industrial partners LGC and Optigene. This is an EPSRC/TSB grant. recently HyBeacon technology is being pursued for diagnosis of viral infections to determine the presence/absence of viruses in clinical samples and if positive, the viral strain. |
Sectors | Healthcare Manufacturing including Industrial Biotechology Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology |
Description | Our Industrial collaborators and other commercial organisations have continued to develop HyBeacon technology for diagnostics including identification of type and strain of viral infections in human samples. |
First Year Of Impact | 2019 |
Sector | Healthcare,Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology |