ZYMERON CORPORATION — Department of Health and Human Services SBIR Phase I: NIAID

Description

There currently lack diagnostic tools with necessary sensitivity for use in the elimination and post elimination efforts for malaria and other Neglected Tropical DiseasesNTDsMicroscopy and rapid diagnostic testsRDTshave been largely adequate for malaria control and case management but lack the sensitivity to detect low density infectionsAsymptomatic individuals with chronic infection remain reservoirs that contribute to onward transmissionQuantification of Plasmodium antigens in asymptomatic infections in the field is important for establishing a highly sensitive diagnostic testIt is important to have tests able to detect not only Plasmodium falciparumP fbut also detect other Plasmodium parasites such as PvivaxP vPovaleP oand PmalariaeP mTo be widely applicablesuch screening tests will need to have LOD sufficiently low to detect a substantial and predictable proportion of asymptomatic infectionsThe lower limit of detectionLLODnecessary to achieve this is estimated to be aroundparasitesLpLwhich can more than double the detection rates compared with RDTsLOD atpLor microscopyZymeron develops highly sensitive rapid tests with a handheld device for detecting low density infections with at least three logs improvement in LOD