New born screening is being done to screen infants shortly after birth for conditions that may be treatable but are not yet clinically evident when doctors are examining newborns. Several conditions are only detectable after the infant becomes very ill and may even die.
Better and easier detection methods to screen infants are currently being researched since effective screening programs are of great interest to states and to the federal government. One such project involves the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) within NIH.
NIDA and NCATS are in the process of negotiating a purchase order on a sole source basis with the University of Maryland to examine the effectiveness of sensors used at the point-of-care involving phenylketonuria and hyperammonemia.
Phenylketonuria (PKU) is a recessive metabolic genetic disorder characterized by a mutation in the gene for the hepatic enzyme. Untreated PKU can lead to mental retardation seizures and other serious medical problems. Hyperammonenemia is a dangerous condition that may lead to encephalopathy which is a metabolic disturbance characterized by an excess of ammonia in the blood.
The university will analyze separate sensing systems and their possible effectiveness to work as point-of-care sensors for phenylketonuria and hyperammonemia. Then an electrochemical sensing mechanism will be investigated in more in depth to detect phenylketonuria plus a colorimetric test will be developed to detect hyperammonemia.
For more information on the notice posted on September 13, 2013 go to www.fbo.gov, email Hunter A. Tjugum at hunter.tjugum@nih.gov.