Johns Hopkins University (JHU) researchers have developed an app and a low-cost portable device that can diagnose gonorrhea in less than 15 minutes. It can also predict how a particular strain will react to first-line antibiotics. Gonorrhea is a sexually transmitted infection (STI), and an accurate and timely diagnosis is critical to the patient's recovery.

Diagnosis of gonorrhea using a portable device and app

In the United States, gonorrhea is the second most common STI. It has become extremely resistant to the medications used to treat it over time.

More than 87 million people have already died as a result of the disease. Antibiotic resistance is exacerbating the problem.

Tza-Huei Wang, a scientist at Johns Hopkins University, led a team that developed an app and a portable device to diagnose gonorrhea. PROMPT is the name of the new device (portable, rapid, on-cartridge, magnetofluidic purification and testing platform). It is powered by a simple five-volt battery and comes with thermoplastic cartridges that cost about $2.

Testing

This device needs very little time for testing. It requires a swab that contains the patient's bodily fluids and interacts with a magnetic particle solution in a tube. A drop of liquid is placed into a cartridge, which is then inserted into the device, after it has been mixed. The liquid particles come into contact with reagents in the cartridge, which then runs through 40 cycles of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing before showing the results on a smartphone.

Result

What matters here is the result of the research process. PROMPT tests in Baltimore and Kampala, Uganda, according to JHU, correctly identified the most common strain of gonorrhea 97 percent of the time. Furthermore, the system is capable of detecting (100%) whether the disease strain being tested will respond to ciprofloxacin. It's an antibiotic that's used to treat diseases that have become resistant to other antibiotics.

Availability

The team has decided to make this device available to the public whenever it is required. As a result, Wang and his team intend to establish a new company to handle regulatory approval, manufacturing, and product delivery.

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