In the United States alone, 50% of antibiotic courses are improperly prescribed, and $35 billion is wasted, in large part because diagnostic exams for curable infections are not complete and returned to care providers until several days after initial testing occurs. In emergency care especially, this issue results in time and money wasted while putting together and prescribing unnecessary and potentially fatal drug regimens, with an ultimate outcome of frustration and dissatisfaction over sub-par quality-of-care for all parties involved: the providers, the care settings (hospitals, nursing facilities, urgent care facilities, etc.), the insurance providers, and finally the patients. The medical community needs rapid point-of-care testing that will reduce costs while providing more accurate and timely information to correctly diagnose and prescribe for infectious diseases.
The Solution
Nanopore Diagnostics’ solution to address delays in bacterial infection diagnosis and limit the over-prescription of antibiotics is to provide a portable, point-of-care test that will allow bacterial infection diagnosis within 30 minutes. This quick turnaround will provide immediate information for proper patient treatment and will reduce the amount of antibiotics used in healthcare.
Nanopore’s diagnostic test will be a small portable test that will be used to detect a variety of bacterial infections. Essentially the test will have a number of patented “Nanopores.” Bacterial probes will be added to the patient sample and if a bacterial infection is present, these probes will bind with the bacterial RNA in the sample. As the bounded molecule moves through the test it will block the unique “Nanopore” for a specific infection, indicating that the patient is suffering from that bacterial infection. What makes the test unique is that it will require minimal preparation of the sample for testing and it will be much more sensitive than conventional tests so the process can be done in 30 minutes.
Our Interaction with the Client
Shortly after the introductory project presentation on Nanopore, our team scheduled a preliminary meeting with the company’s cofounder, Tom Cohen, to gain more specific details regarding the scope of our project and how best to serve Nanopore’s goals. The meeting took place at Cortex, where our group was able to see firsthand the lab and workspace that Nanopore researchers operate in.
Throughout our meeting, we were fascinated by Tom’s knowledge, commitment, and vigor. Though the subject matter of the meeting was heavily founded in complex medical terminology, we were able to clearly comprehend what Nanopore was attempting to accomplish and the significant impact the end product could have within the medical world. Following the meeting, our team met and created a plan of action that narrowed the focus of our project to finding applications of Nanopore’s product for current UTI testing procedures, which we ultimately had validated by Tom.
Throughout the entire process thus far, Tom has been extremely helpful, available, informative, and receptive. As we continue to consult for Nanopore we are confident that our interactions with Tom and other Nanopore researchers will be valuable, insightful, and always welcoming – a tribute to the atmosphere that Nanopore has embraced.
Our Goal and Approach
Our project is to determine whether there is market interest in using Nanopore’s rapid test to diagnose urinary tract infections (UTIs). To this end, we are conducting wide-ranging interviews with and surveys of the St. Louis medical community. Our interviewees include private practice physicians, physicians and nurses in nursing homes and urgent care facilities, hospital administrators and insurance providers. Through these conversations we intend to gain a clear sense of the current state of UTI testing, and the interest in and need for diagnosing UTIs more quickly and accurately. We also aim to gauge the financial and administrative plausibility of using an in-office rapid test. Ultimately, we hope to identify the best market or markets for Nanopore’s technology in the realm of UTI diagnoses.
CELect Team: law students Emily Friedman, Kenneth Giacobbe, and Mike Benson and BA/BSBA student Delia Chassaing.
