after over 10 years of development
HIV-1 Quantitative Kits:
Less than 45% of people living with HIV in Africa have access to an early diagnosis or treatment monitoring test. So, they are not really monitoring or detecting when they become infected or develop drug-resistant mutations early enough. This is contributing to a surge in HIV drug resistance. It is a huge public health concern.
Accessible, Ambient-Temperature, Adaptable !
We are tackling this problem by developing easy-to-use, ambient-temperature HIV-1 quantitative kits including (RT)qPCR and LAMP assay kits, that can be adapted to work on most suitable instruments. Initially, they will be for research use only, but eventually we will release them for early diagnosis, treatment-monitoring and other suitable clinical activities. Our ultimate goal is to make the kits accessible to the most needy in sub-Saharan Africa and other resource-constrained areas of the world. The kits are based on the following publication:
Kibirige, C.N., Manak, M., King, D. et al. Development of a sensitive, quantitative assay with broad subtype specificity for detection of total HIV-1 nucleic acids in plasma and PBMC. Sci Rep 12, 1550 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-03016-