David Roach – Development of a low-resource assay to profile drug-resistant K. pneumoniae in Peru
Category: Resident
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria cause an estimated 5 million deaths annually, with the highest burden in low and middle-income countries. Frequently, the infrastructure required to diagnose these infections is not available in those areas most affected,
likely leading to worse outcomes.
Roach’s goal is to build a cheap, portable diagnostic platform to identify resistant bacterial infections in low-resource settings.
David explained his approach.
“First, I will adapt the SHERLOCK method of nucleic acid detection, which has been shown to detect human viral infections, to identify bacterial infections of the bloodstream and urine at species-level resolution,” he said. “Second, I will modify the
target gene amplification step of the assay to allow for multiplexing up to 10 gene targets simultaneously, which will increase the utility of the assay. Concurrently, I will work with well-established Peruvian collaborators who have established a
large collection of K. pneumoniae isolates with associated whole genome sequencing (WGS) data.
I will utilize this dataset to identify all carbapenemase genes present within the population and develop a SHERLOCK assay that is tailored to this region, with validation done on stored samples in the collaborator’s collection. This work will serve as
a model for other areas of the globe for using tailored, point-of-care gene-based detection systems in low-resource settings that are highly impacted by antibiotic-resistant organisms."
Deniz Goodman – iProbe: an ultrasound simulator application
Category: Student
iProbe: an ultrasound simulator application is an app that provides an easily accessible and free repository of ultrasound images and functions as a probe simulator and provides point-of-care ultrasound scan simulation to medical students without local
access to tower machines.
