Team:Purdue/Design
A paper-based assay containing proteins that have the ability to quickly detect C. Albicans more specifically. Let’s explain…
Speed
The time it takes to see the result of our test is simply limited to how fast our color indicating solution can move through the paper. Therefore, we’ve reduced the wait time to minutes or even seconds. This allows a much faster diagnosis and decreases the wait time before a patient finally seeks accurate treatment.
Accuracy
One of the biggest challenges in designing a diagnostic for C. albicans is striking a reasonable balance between sensitivity and specificity. The most reliable infection biomarker is some aspect of a yeast cell itself; this makes the limit of detection only as low as how many cells there are present. Thus, it is necessary to detect a biomarker both readily available in collected bodily samples and indicative of only C. albicans only as well.
Our protein construct is built to interact with farnesol or tyrosol exclusively. Both of these molecules are specifically secreted by C. albicans in either their infectious bloodborne or mucosal stages respectively. This specific interaction allows our assay to solely detect C. albicans and therefore avoid accidental misdiagnoses.
Accessibility
The assay is made up of primarily protein, paper, and wax. Both the paper and the wax are cost-effective and stored at a larger range of conditions.These factors allow our assay to pose as a feasible, self-diagnostic option to the average women and to developing countries. The product could easily be stocked and stored in drug stores or the average home. It could also withstand travel and storage to assist those in developing countries.
The assay itself costs around 0.11$. This is affordable for most poorer people, though there is a bit of room for improvement. According to the Action Against Hunger.
In Conclusion
If you compare our newly designed test to other testing options that are commonly used, our test is able to improve on these three factors to provide us a better solution to diagnosing yeast infections.
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