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TB detection

Tuberculosis (TB) is a life-threatening disease caused by mycobacteria. Every year 9 million people around the world develop tuberculosis and 1.7 million of them die from the disease. Early tuberculosis detection remains a great challenge and current diagnostic tests fail to identify the active disease in half the cases.  In some latent TB individuals there are mycobacteria in the body that in the future can increase in number and cause disease. Nevertheless the viable bacteria may take several years to onset the disease. The general approach to determine if mycobacteria are present has been to use the immune response of the individual concerned as a diagnostic tool. This does not worked as well as needed, primarily because antibodies stay around even if the bacteria are long gone.

Live mycobacteria undergo active metabolism even when they are not replicating. Our aim is to develop a portable fiber optic sensor to detect molecules shed by living bacteria via fluorescence using tightly binding antibodies. This is an extremely sensitive technology appropriate to detect these shed molecules. We plan to build a field-based device capable of detection of one thousand plate bound fluorescent molecules that will contribute to prevention of TB epidemics spread in third world countries.