U of T experts have led one of the first field trials for a synthetic biology-based diagnostic platform that could provide rapid, low-cost patient testing for Zika and other infectious diseases (photo courtesy of Livia Guo, LSK Technologies)
U of T experts have led one of the first field trials for a synthetic biology-based diagnostic platform that could provide rapid, low-cost patient testing for Zika and other infectious diseases (photo courtesy of Livia Guo, LSK Technologies) - An international team of researchers, led by experts from the University of Toronto's Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, has conducted one of the first field trials for a synthetic biology-based diagnostic platform that could provide rapid, de-centralized and low-cost patient testing for infectious diseases such as the Zika virus. The work, conducted on-site in Latin America, revealed the potential for the cell-free synthetic biology tools and companion hardware. Published in Nature Biomedical Engineering , the study's results show that the novel diagnostic platform has analytical specificity and sensitivity equivalent to a U.S. Centres for Disease Control (CDC) PCR test for Zika and a diagnostic accuracy of 98.5 per cent with 268 patient samples collected in Recife, Brazil. The platform is also programmable and can be similarly applied to detect any pathogen sequence. In addition to validating highly accurate diagnostic results for Zika, the team also achieved similar diagnostic performance for chikungunya virus, another mosquito-borne arbovirus. "We see emerging diagnostics, like the paper-based tests we've developed, as having tremendous near-term potential to augment existing PCR capacity, improve equity in access to health care and aid in the responses to public health crises," said Keith Pardee , assistant professor in the department of pharmaceutical sciences in the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy.
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