Each year, drug-resistant microorganisms infect 2 million people and kill 23,000 patients. In order for physicians to be able to treat drug-resistant infections within an appropriate treatment window, the pathogen must first be detected and identified. Yet current clinical diagnosis can take 3-4 days to process, leaving patients without effective treatment while they wait. A novel gene amplification method, currently termed “SPIDR”, allows for a rapid assay to alleviate this wait time and quickly and accurately identify the pathogen at hand.
Description
Spiral Isothermal DNA Replication, or SPIDR, is a novel nucleic acid amplification method that produces specific and visible amplification products at isothermal temperatures. Importantly, SPIDR proceeds with distinct advantages over LAMP methods, including superior specificity and sensitivity, as well as requiring fewer and simpler primers. Additionally, the SPIDR process takes approximately 30 to 60 minutes, whereas a similar PCR reaction takes 90 to 120 minutes. SPIDR makes use of simple heaters and real-time detection of fluorescence to optimize molecular assays in laboratory settings. This rapid assay has also been combined with a computer-based point-of-care device to create a simple and accurate test system that allows hospitals to rapidly identify a pathogen and administer an appropriate treatment.
Applications
• Point-of-care molecular assays
• Molecular diagnostics
• Amplification and detection of DNA, cDNA, and RNA
Advantages
• Twice as fast as traditional PCR
• Not based on thermos-cycling
• Superior specificity and sensitivity compared to LAMP
• Requires fewer and simpler primers than LAMP
Invention Readiness
In vitro data
IP Status
https://patents.google.com/patent/US9523120B2
