Pictura Bio: Machine learning enhanced universal point of care diagnosis platform for infectious diseases leveraging novel fluorescent labelling of enveloped pathogens - developing the Alpha Prototype.

总部位于英国的初创公司PicturaBio Ltd将通过开发传染病诊断平台，利用PicturaBio独特的病原体识别技术IRIS进行“病原体面部识别”，从而改变现有的人类病毒检测方法。由流感、副流感和呼吸道合胞病毒等病原体引起的传染病每年导致数千人死亡。目前的检测工作流程严重依赖于集中实验室，检测能力和物流网络在需求高峰期难以发挥作用。目前的病毒检测诊断方法，如病毒培养、RT-PCR或基于抗原的快速诊断测试，往往受到等待时间长或灵敏度和特异性有限的阻碍，无法快速应对新的疫情。因此，迫切需要分散化的检测解决方案，将检测从实验室转移到能够提供简单、快速和灵敏的病毒检测方法的护理点。该项目专注于开发PicturaBio的诊断平台，在降低成本和提供护理点实验室质量结果方面实现了一步改变。IRIS小到可以放在桌子上，这项技术可以推广到各种各样的用户，如急诊科、全科医生和药房。该平台可以以较低的成本对患者进行快速诊断，这将有助于减少抗生素的过度使用，保护脆弱患者，并通过早期治疗减少住院时间。该平台适合临床环境之外的非临床专家使用，可以快速部署，提高全球对超快速、准确的传染病诊断的可及性，用于常规用途，并快速应对新的疫情。

UK-based start-up PicturaBio Ltd will transform existing approaches to human virus detection, through the development of an infectious disease diagnosis platform, leveraging PicturaBio's unique pathogen identification technology, IRIS, for "facial recognition of pathogens".Infectious diseases caused by pathogens like influenza, parainfluenza, and respiratory syncytial virus cause many thousands of deaths annually. Current testing workflows rely heavily on centralised laboratories, with testing capacity and logistics networks struggling during peak demand spikes.Current diagnostic approaches for virus detection, such as virus culture, RT-PCR or antigen-based rapid diagnostic tests, are often hampered by long waiting times, or limited sensitivity and specificity, and cannot rapidly respond to new outbreaks. As a result, there is an urgent need for decentralising testing solutions, moving testing away from laboratories to the point of care that provides straightforward, fast, and sensitive viral detection methods.This project focuses on the development of PicturaBio's diagnostic platform, providing a step-change in cost reduction and delivering laboratory quality results at the point of care. With IRIS small enough to fit on a desk, this technology can be rolled out to a wide variety of users such as emergency departments, GPs, and pharmacies. Patients can be diagnosed rapidly at low cost, which will help to reduce antibiotic overuse, protect vulnerable patients, and reduce hospital stays by enabling earlier treatment.Suitable for utilisation by non-clinical experts beyond clinical settings, the platform can be rapidly deployed, improving global accessibility to ultra-fast, accurate infectious disease diagnostics for routine use as well as rapid response to new outbreaks.