Grant: Team Grant: Canada-Latin/America-Caribbean Zika Virus Program - Diagnostics

The Zika virus outbreak highlights the need for low-cost diagnostics that can be rapidly developed for distribution and use in pandemic regions. We have recently reported a pipeline for the rapid design, assembly, and validation of cell-free, paper-based sensors for the detection of the Zika virus RNA genome. These tools detected clinically relevant concentrations of Zika virus from infected macaque plasma and were specific against closely related Dengue virus sequences. When coupled with a novel CRISPR/Cas9-based module, our approach could also discriminate between Zika viral strains with single-base resolution. Importantly, this freeze-dried biomolecular platform allows for storage and distribution at room temperature, resolving important practical limitations to the deployment of molecular diagnostics in the field. We now seek to develop the field readiness of this platform and deploy it for testing in Ecuador, Brazil and Colombia. By extending our platform to the outbreak region, our multi-disciplinary team will adapt the technology in three key areas. Firstly, this includes the development of faster Zika virus sensors and a new class of sensor that can directly detect the single-base differences between strains of the virus. We will also develop diagnostics for dengue and chikungunya virus to provide a more comprehensive toolbox for the field. Secondly, we will develop a low cost digital microfluidics platform to handle and prepare samples upstream of the molecular diagnostics. This integrated microfluidics and sensor platform will provide the portable, lab-grade tools needed for diagnostics in remote and low resource environments. Thirdly, in collaboration with national labs in Latin America, these technologies will be deployed to outbreak regions for testing with diagnostic and mosquito surveillance networks during the first 6 - 18 months. Through these efforts our research stands to improve human health, slow the spread of the Zika virus outbreak.