LYNNTECH INC. — Department of Health and Human Services SBIR Phase I: ODCDC

Description

The cells of the microbiota and intestinal epithelium form an important partnership in host defense The integrity and balance of these cells is crucial to human health Antibiotic therapy is often required to treat infections however this can result in the emergence of resistant organisms especially problematic in hospitals Many bacterial pathogens have evolved into multidrug resistant organisms MDROs after antibiotic exposure resulting in superbugs The ability to quickly identify the infective organism could result in rapid targeted treatment reducing the duration of the hospital stay and decreasing complications Lynntech proposes to develop a user friendly sensitive multiplex quantitative PCR based qPCR assay capable of detecting the S rDNA gene from selected major intestinal organisms and antibiotic resistant genes from MDROs Additionally we will demonstrate successful isolation of nucleic acids using Lynntech s sample preparation module in the presence of a fecal matrix Finally we will determine conditions in which PCR reagents can be dried and remain stable Lynntech s proposed effort will result in a multiplexed diagnostic assay capable of rapidly detecting the presence of MDROs in patient samples This will provide a rapid sample to answer for the patient resulting in appropriate treatment for the patient ultimately limiting the further spread of MDROs