BOSTON, Sept. 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Aldatu Biosciences, a biotechnology firm growing molecular diagnostic assays and merchandise primarily based on gold commonplace real-time PCR, at present introduced it has been awarded a $3 Million Direct-to-Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) on the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The award will fund the continued development of the corporate’s proprietary PANDAA™ know-how platform and its particular utility to the common, pan-lineage detection of Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Virus (CCHFV), the causative agent of Crimean Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF).
CCHF is a tick-borne illness with excessive mortality charges in people and excessive outbreak potential. Found in 30 nations throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa, CCHF has a particularly widespread and rising vary. Its causative agent, CCHFV, is listed among the many urgently regarding pathogens prioritized within the World Health Organization (WHO) R&D Blueprint. With a minimum of seven regional clades, CCHFV detection by gold commonplace qPCR-based strategies has been encumbered by important strain-associated genetic variability. Existing checks for CCHFV are sometimes restricted to regional use, presenting a barrier to standardization and high quality assurance. The WHO has referred to as for the event of common CCHFV diagnostics as a worldwide precedence.
PANDAA assays uniquely mitigate target-proximal variability with out sacrificing specificity, and as such can handle a essential situation for CCHFV diagnostics. “Traditional qPCR falls short when it comes to development of simple assays with broad coverage of genetically diverse subtypes or lineages of the same pathogen, but this is exactly where PANDAA excels,” famous Iain MacLeod, CEO/CSO at Aldatu. “This funding will enable us to further demonstrate the unique ability of the PANDAA platform to solve diagnostic challenges related to strain variability that have plagued the diagnostic community for ages.”
The focus of this Direct-to-Phase II SBIR work will likely be to develop a easy, qPCR-based assay able to detecting all circulating CCHFV lineages with a time-to-result of lower than 2 hours. As the one check that will detect all circulating CCHFV lineages with equally excessive sensitivity, the PANDAA CCHFV check in improvement would supply a first-in-kind scalable industrial answer that may very well be utilized globally. As the WHO and different international well being leaders proceed to assist response efforts for viral hemorrhagic fever outbreaks globally, new instruments that enhance entry to high quality testing and assist illness administration are main discussions, particularly when efficient vaccines and remedy are missing.
The launch of the CCHFV program is one other significant enlargement of the Pandemic Preparedness Portfolio at Aldatu Biosciences. “We are pleased to grow our Pandemic Preparedness Portfolio with our CCHFV test joining our tests for SARS-CoV-2 and Lassa Fever Virus,” mentioned Mike Henry, Aldatu’s CBO. “Genetic diversity is a common theme among recent viral outbreaks, including the COVID-19 pandemic which we are still navigating today. Our PANDAA technology is designed to enable simple and fast detection of these highly divergent viruses on common diagnostic laboratory instruments like the ABI 7500 or the Abbott m2000, which are great tools when responding to outbreaks, as they are located in abundance across the globe.”
Aldatu Biosciences is the chief in adaptive PCR diagnostics for international well being and rising ailments. Developed at Harvard University, our proprietary PANDAA™ know-how is an modern pandemic preparedness and biosecurity platform for goal detection in extremely variable genomic areas. As a Public Benefit Corporation, Aldatu is dedicated to commercializing diagnostics that enhance affected person care and healthcare price effectivity around the globe.
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