The National Science Foundation (NSF) https://www.nsf.gov within their Smart and Connected Health Program, has awarded $1,187,778 so far to the University of Florida to study Enabling Real Time Surveillance of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). The project is due to start January 1, 2021 and end December 31, 2024 (estimated).
AMR has become a serious threat to public health, since AMR causes antibiotics to be ineffective, which results in outbreaks becoming more frequent, widespread, and severe. It is estimated that 2.8 million people per year in the U.S are infected with resistant bacteria, and more than 35,000 of the cases are lethal.
One way to identify AMR is to apply high throughput sequencing to a biological sample such as when a nose swab is used. Advancements in sequencing technology has enabled the size of devices to fit into one hand. However, the bioinformatics analysis requires millions or billions of DNA sequences which requires the use of high performance computers that have significant memory and disk space.
This has resulted in making AMR identification limited in low resource settings such as in rural areas in the U.S. This research project will address the real-time detection of AMR in rural areas by developing bioinformatics analysis methods which will use portable computing devices such as phones and tablets.
The anticipated outcome is to develop and do a real time portable identification of AMR is to increase the efficiency so society can control and monitor outbreaks. Specifically, the project will aim to create on-device methods to identify bacteria in biological samples, create on-device methods to identify AMR genes in a biological sample, evaluate the usability of the methods, and provide for their wide-spread dissemination.
In addition, the use of these techniques will help identify viruses such as COVID-19 and help to improve rapid diagnosis of the virus in areas with limited computing and sequencing resources such as in rural areas.
Go to https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2013998&HistoricalAwards=false to view award abstract #2013998 and to email Principle Investigator, Christina Boucher, go to christinaboucher@ufl.edu.