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Previous collaborative research has demonstrated the potential for the interferometric biosensor, based on a planar optical waveguide transducer with a capture antibody recognition element, for the diagnosis of avian influenza virus. This collaborative project seeks to accelerate this continuing effort toward the goal of developing and validating the biosensor technology as a penside test for avian influenza that is rapid, sensitive and cost effective.
APPROACH: Previous work has demonstrated that an interferometric biosensor can be used to detect avian influenza virus using both monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies for the H7 subtype. This diagnostic platform will be further developed and evaluated as a sensitive, fast and cost effective penside test. Comparisons of performance of this diagnostic test with other available diagnostics for avian influenza will be completed on diagnostic samples from both experimentally infected animals and laboratory samples. Additional subtypes of avian influenza will be evaluated, including H5 avian influenza. Using the data from these experiments, a prototype field-deployable device will be developed and tested.