SeLux Diagnostics, Inc. — Department of Health and Human Services SBIR Phase I: R

Description

The goal of this Phase I SBIR proposal is to demonstrate utility to all major pathogenic bacterial strains of SeLux s rapidlow costphenotypic antibiotic susceptibility testASTsystemfast AST or FASTUtilizing existing optical detectors and standard dried antibiotic microplatesand avoiding pitfalls of metabolic probesFAST will potentially transform therapy of infections by significantly accelerating ASTthereby facilitating treatment with the optimal antibioticAimwill apply FAST to hundreds of samples of pathogenic bacterial strainswhile developing and optimizing a predictive algorithm for clinical utilityAimwill extend the FAST platform to slow growing strains and species as wellSeLux has demonstrated FAST to exceed FDAkrequirements for minimum inhibitory concentration determinations forstrains of Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli with full antibiotic panelsCompletion of the proposed aims will expand FAST to all major clinically relevantnon fastidious bacterial pathogensSeLux s interdisciplinary team has expertise in nanosensingmicrobiologyand algorithm design and is buttressed by distinguished experts in Clinical MicrobiologyInfectious Diseaseand Machine Learning The new paradigm in clinical medicine is value based healthcarewhich requires rapid and accurate diagnoses leading to optimal patient treatmentNowhere is this more important than in treating infectionswhere doctors are currently forced to overprescribe broad spectrum antibiotics during an agonizinghour wait for antibiotic susceptibility testASTresultsThe novelrapidlow cost AST platform described in this proposal promises to reduce this delay in treatment by as much ashoursThis advance would be transformative for the treatment of infections because current over use of broad spectrum antibiotics not only harms individual patients but is a primary contributor to the growing epidemic of antibiotic resistance