A peptide microarray for serodiagnosis of exposure to high-threat hemorrhagic fever viruses

This technology is a programmable peptide microarray, that identifies immunogenic epitopes for differential serodiagnosis for a broad range of highly pathogenic microbial agents, including high-threat hemorrhagic fever viruses.

Unmet Need: An effective way to determine specific viral exposures

In today's globalized environment, the myriad high-threat viruses, ranging from influenza strains to high-threat viruses like Ebola, Marburg, Lassa, Reston, and Lloviu virus, pose a complex challenge to public health due to high pathogenicity, risk of cross species transfer from wildlife and domestic animals to humans, and lack of established vaccine and therapeutic measures. The constant evolution of these viruses has led to closely related viruses that are cross-reactive, making serodiagnosis difficult. Coupled with their potential for rapid transmission, this underscores the critical need for robust and adaptable serodiagnostic assays to identify and diagnose exposure to these high-threat pathogens.

The Technology: A platform to efficiently diagnose viral exposures

This technology is a robust platform for testing microbial agents with high sensitivity and specificity. It can accommodate up to 6 million distinct linear peptides on a slide, allowing for the identification of immunoreactive peptides for differential serodiagnosis of exposure to a wide range of microbial agents, including filoviruses, Lyssa viruses, Dengue viruses (DENV), yellow fever virus (YFV), West Nile virus (WNV), Selmiki forest virus, Rift valley fever virus (RVF), Measles virus, Mumps virus, Rubella virus, and selective proteins of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Salmonella typhi, and Plasmodium falciparum. As such, this technology poses a highly effective diagnostic tool to be used in regions of high viral uptake and medical facilities for quick and accurate diagnoses. Immunoreactive peptides using this platform have been validated by using a biotinylated peptide based ELISA, low-density peptide microarrays, and a short-peptide phage display for broader use in clinical medicine and public health.

Applications:

• Diagnostics platform for high-threat viral exposures
• Research tool for studying peptide reaction kinetics
• Vaccine efficacy detection device
• Differential diagnostic between post-vaccine immunity and post-infection immunity
• Identification of peptides that can be used for development of less expensive assays.

Advantages:

• High-throughput platform for detection of exposure to high threat hemorrhagic fever viruses.
• Efficient
• Assays are not confounded by cross‐reactivity between closely related and homologous filoviruses, and other endemic viruses

Lead Inventors:

W. Ian Lipkin, MD Nischay Mishra, PhD

Patent Information:

Patent Pending

Related Publications:

Tech Ventures Reference:

• IR CU23088

• Licensing Contact: Kristin Neuman