DNA Analysis in Multi-Phase Microfabricated Devices

描述（由申请人提供）：传染病是一项重要的医疗费用负担。对于细菌性感染，特别是慢性感染，在不知道所选药物是否适合感染病原体的情况下，选择抗生素进行治疗。尽管病毒感染几乎没有有效的治疗方法，但患者在离开初级保健医生的办公室之前希望药物治疗。抗生素通常用于病毒性感染，因为患者要求他们没有意识到他们是无效的，或者医生提供他们作为一种预防措施。显然，快速和准确地识别感染性病原体将减少不必要的处方，缩短住院时间，并减少抗生素耐药微生物的传播。我们建议开发一种遗传分析微流控系统，使用单一气动输入进行流体控制，并使用多路反应系统进行物种识别。该设备将使用一系列反应室和分离通道来确定感染因子的类别及其对抗生素的特异性耐药性。我们将针对与急性（普通感冒）和慢性（多物种细菌）呼吸道感染相关的病原体进行主要应用。我们选择这些目标区域有几个原因。首先，对于我们的小设备尺寸策略，我们需要具有足够致病负荷的样本来完成分析，这些疾病通常具有高病原体数量的拭子、痰液或鼻洗液中的患者材料。其次，了解不同的病原体种类和菌株及其感染时间过程可以更好地治疗和减少抗生素的使用。最后，该设备可以很容易地扩展到其他病毒，细菌制剂，或基因组分析，只需改变试剂。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Infectious diseases represent a significant healthcare cost burden. For bacterial infections, especially chronic ones, antibiotics are selected for treatment not knowing whether the drugs selected are appropriate for the infecting pathogen. Although viral infections have few effective treatments, patients desire medication before they leave their primary care physician's office. Antibiotics are often prescribed for viral infections because the patient demands them not realizing they are ineffective, or the physician provides them as a precautionary measure. Clearly, rapidly and accurately identifying infectious pathogens will lead to fewer unnecessary prescriptions, reduced hospitalization time, and a reduction in the spread of antibiotic resistant microbes. We propose to develop a genetic analysis microfluidic system that uses a single pneumatic input for fluidic control, and a multiplexed reaction system for species identification. The device will use a series of reaction chambers followed by a separation channel to determine the class of infecting agents and their specific resistance to antibiotics. We will target pathogens associated with acute (the common cold) and chronic (multiple-species bacterial) respiratory infections for our main applications. We choose these target areas for several reasons. First, for our strategy of small device size, we need a sample with sufficient pathogenic load to complete an analysis patient material from a swab, sputum, or nasal wash for these diseases typically has high pathogen numbers. Second, understanding the different pathogen species and strains and their infection time course could lead to better treatment and lower the use of antibiotics. Finally, the device can easily be extended to other viruses, bacterial agents, or genomic analysis with merely a change in the reagents.