I-Corps: Rapid home microbiome diagnostic tests

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is in monitoring microbes in the built environment (home/work/healthcare providers), and on ourselves (the human microbiome) as a part of holistic health and wellness. While culture-based methods are the current gold-standard for identifying microbes, the time and difficulty in culturing particular organisms prevent their application in broad-scale environmental monitoring. New approaches to sequence DNA directly from a sample, referred to as metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS), offer a path forward. mNGS is unbiased and offers the potential to 1) achieve results in 24 hours compared to days for culture, 2) avoid the issue of fastidious organisms, 3) avoid culture growth bias, 4) detect viral, fungal, and parasitic organisms in the same assay, and 5) detect the presence of drug resistance genes. Advances in mNGS technology and data analysis have reduced the cost mNGS, and therefore warrant its development in consumer-based products. By providing customers with an evidence-based approach to measuring and monitoring their home environment, mNGS could benefit consumers by monitoring potential environmental hazards, demonstrating the effect of cleaners and air purification systems, and improving health in individuals, especially those that are immunocompromised (e.g., elderly, diabetic, autoimmune diseases, and cancer patients) or suffering from asthma and allergies.This I-Corps project will conduct customer discovery activities to explore the possibility of commercializing a scalable and novel big data approach to compute the distance between metagenomes based on the genetic similarities and differences between microbial communities. These analyses provide a way to cluster similar metagenomes, or in contrast, distinguish between microbial communities to determine the impact of ecological (or clinical) conditions. The team will explore the utility of their approach for developing a consumer-facing product to analyze the home microbiome. As part of the I-Corps program, they will conduct 100 customer interviews from diverse perspectives to hone in on a potential product and unmet need. An individual’s personal environment represents a vast array of surfaces and environmental factors that vary by region, climate, and lifestyle and may have an important on human health. Potential products explore the connection between the home environment and hazardous microbes, for health, safety, and limiting infectious disease transmission.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.