Currently, the AIDS virus or HIV is still the pandemic that generates the greatest problems in the world population. In 2016 there were 37.4 million people infected with this virus, and although apparently the appearance of new cases is detrimental year after year, still almost 2 million people die a year because of this disease. One of the biggest problems of this disease is the difficulty in early detection of the virus.
Currently there are several methods of HIV recognition, specifically, the efficiency of the p24 antigen of the virus capsid in blood has recently been published. One of the advantages of this protein is that it appears a few days after the patient has been infected.
In this project a new assay methodology for the early detection of the p24 protein in blood will be developed. The detection system has been widely reported in the scientific literature, and is based on the combination of interferometers transducers and advanced reading systems that allow the improvement of the detection limit in the recognition in target molecules. The novel part of the project presented here will be to improve the system for the specific application of the p24 protein in blood.
The challenge of this project is to improve the performance of our biosensors, to improve their range and effectiveness for detecting different biomarkers, keeping them label-free and providing quantitative information through a simple and low-cost measurement system.
BiOD is the lead partner for the read-out hardware and fully responsible for coordinating the commercial exploitation of the AllerScreening platform.
The objectives pursued by this project are two. First, validate the potential of the consortium’s proprietary antibodies in early diagnosis in Alzheimer’s patients. Second, obtain a first proof of concept that confirms the viability and efficacy of an immunotherapy based on those antibodies.