I-Corps: A Smartphone-Based Pathogen Detection Device for Remote and Low-Resource Settings

I-Corps项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是使消费者能够在需要的地方检测感染性病原体，而不是在中心实验室环境中。该项目将通过快速、灵敏地检测传染因子和自动记录数据，加强目前在偏远和资源匮乏环境中进行疾病检测和监测的方法。该检测系统的商业影响利用了当前智能手机的功能，以及成像、微流体和增强计算的进步，可以在便携式格式中检测多种重要的人类病原体。此外，智能手机技术的广泛用户体验减少了额外培训步骤的需要，并降低了采用的障碍。该项目将支持与现场工作人员、医疗保健社区工作人员、临床医生、护士以及政府和援助组织内的采购官员进行广泛的客户发现。这个I-Corps项目将智能手机与外部硬件和一次性微流控芯片集成在一起，以实现便携式病原体检测平台。该项目的智力价值源于新开发的粒子扩散测量技术的实施，这是一种基于光学的方法，可以量化流体中粒子的布朗运动。结合颗粒扩散法与核酸为基础的DNA扩增方法，是标准的点护理设备行业允许在病原体检测的敏感性增加数量级。在病原体存在的情况下，DNA扩增发生，并导致通过智能手机相机/外部硬件显微镜镜头系统成像的样品溶液中颗粒运动减少。智能手机应用程序执行所有定量计算，提供检测结果并立即记录数据。数据可以随时推送到云端，组织可以实时跟踪检测事件。因此，I-Corps项目将探索基于智能手机的病原体检测在偏远和资源匮乏环境中的市场潜力，以及在疾病监测和监测具有巨大效用的应用领域。为此，该项目将提供快速和负担得起的传染病病原体检测解决方案，同时帮助有效的医疗资源分配。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to enable a consumer device for the detection of infectious pathogens at the point-of-need instead of in a central laboratory environment. The project will enhance current approaches to disease detection and monitoring in remote and low-resource settings by rapid and sensitive detection of infectious agents and automated data-logging. The commercial impact of the detection system leverages current smartphone capability in concert with advances in imaging, microfluidics, and enhanced computation to deliver detection of multiple important human pathogens all within a portable format. Further, widespread user experience with smartphone technologies mitigates the need for additional training steps and lowers barriers to adoption. This project will support extensive customer discovery with field workers, healthcare community workers, clinicians, nurses, and procurement officials within governmental and aid organizations. This I-Corps project integrates the smartphone with external hardware and disposable microfluidic chips to enable a portable pathogen detection platform. The intellectual merit of the project stems from the implementation of newly developed particle diffusometry technology, an optical-based method that quantifies the Brownian motion of particles within a fluid. Combining particle diffusometry with nucleic acid-based DNA amplification methods that are standard for point-of-care device industry allows for order of magnitude increases in the sensitivity of pathogen detection. In the presence of pathogens, DNA amplification occurs and causes a decrease in the motion of particles in the sample solution that is imaged by the smartphone camera/external hardware microscope lens system. A smartphone application performs all of the quantitative computation, providing both detection results and immediately logging the data. Data can be readily pushed to the cloud where organizations can track detection events in real-time. Therefore, this I-Corps project will explore the market potential for smartphone-based pathogen detection in remote and low-resource settings and for applications where disease surveillance and monitoring is of great utility. To this end, this project will provide fast and affordable infectious pathogen detection solutions while aiding in effective healthcare resource distribution.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.