Researchers develop device for fastgonorrhea diagnosis12 May 2021

The PROMPT instrument can give patient affordable testresults in under 15 minutes, while standard-of-care testsin centralized labs can take hours to days. Credit: A.Y.Trick et al., Science Translational Medicine (2021)

A Johns Hopkins University-led team has createdan inexpensive portable device and cellphone appto diagnose gonorrhea in less than 15 minutes anddetermine if a particular strain will respond tofrontline antibiotics.

The invention improves on traditional testing inhospital laboratories and clinics, which typicallytakes up to a week to deliver results—time duringwhich patients can unknowingly spread theirinfections. The team's results appear today in Science Translational Medicine.

"Our portable, inexpensive testing platform has thepotential to change the game when it comes todiagnosing and enabling rapid treatment ofsexually transmitted infections," said team leaderTza-Huei Wang, a professor of mechanicalengineering and core researcher at the Institute forNanoBioTechnology at Johns Hopkins WhitingSchool of Engineering. "It ensures that patients arediagnosed on the spot, and treatment can beginimmediately, improving clinical outcomes. This will

be especially valuable in low-resource settings,where well-equipped laboratories are not alwaysavailable to every patient."

More than 87 million people around the world areinfected with gonorrhea, a potentially devastatingsexually transmitted disease with increasingresistance to antibiotics. Experts say that quicklyidentifying and treating those infected is the onlyway to prevent spiraling numbers of cases and thefurther rise of antibiotic-resistant strains.

Called PROMPT (portable, rapid, on-cartridge,magnetofluidic purification and testing platform), theWang team's device runs on a simple five-voltbattery and includes thermoplastic cartridges thatcost about $2.

Testing is simple: A swab containing the patient'sbody fluid is mixed with a solution of magneticparticles in a tube, and a drop of that blend isloaded into a cartridge, which snaps into thedevice. The device transfers the magnetizedparticles to reagents in the cartridge, which runsthrough 40 cycles of polymerase chain reaction(PCR) testing before displaying the results on thecellphone screen. (PCR testing enables scientiststo take tiny samples of DNA and amplify them tostudy in detail. They are the gold standard fortesting for COVID-19, for example.)

During testing from sexual health clinics inBaltimore and Kampala, Uganda, PROMPTcorrectly detected the most common strain ofgonorrhea about 97% of the time. It was 100%accurate in determining whether the tested strain ofgonorrhea would respond to ciprofloxacin, amedication that targets infections that are resistantto other antibiotics.

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A schematic of the PROMPT instrument, showing thefluorescence detector and servo motors. Credit: A.Y.Trick et al., Science Translational Medicine (2021)

"Our test maintains the same sensitivity andspecificity currently used in hospital and clinic labsbut reduces the cost and time involved," said teammember Alex Trick, a Johns Hopkins graduatestudent in biomedical engineering. "We want thesediagnostics to be available to all people who needit, when they need it."

Wang and his team are forming a university spinoffto work through regulatory approval, manufacturing,and distribution.

"We expect to be able to deliver these products tothose who can really benefit from them in two tothree years," he said.

More information: A.Y. Trick el al., "A portablemagnetofluidic platform for detecting sexuallytransmitted infections and antimicrobialsusceptibility," Science Translational Medicine(2021). stm.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/ …scitranslmed.abf6356

Provided by Johns Hopkins UniversityAPA citation: Researchers develop device for fast gonorrhea diagnosis (2021, May 12) retrieved 22 July2022 from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-05-device-fast-gonorrhea-diagnosis.html

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