Rapid diagnostic test for cervical cancer detection in low-resource settings
Interdisciplinary Areas: | Engineering-Medicine |
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Project Description
Although cervical cancer is an easily curable disease if detected early, it continues to claim the lives of hundreds of thousands of women worldwide. Due to disparities in healthcare access, women in rural America and other low-resource settings worldwide are twice as likely to die from cervical cancer as their urban and high-resource counterparts.
This research will develop a paper-based sample-to-answer test that provides sensitive and specific detection of high-risk pre-cancer and invasive cervical cancer at the point-of-care. The project will translate the detection of recently identified dysregulated protein biomarkers from centralized laboratory assays to rapid paper-fluidic tests. The postdoctoral fellow involved in the project will perform applied research to develop and evaluate this rapid, point-of-care test for cervical cancer screening in low-resource settings. Activities could involve but are not limited to immunoassay design, biomarker screening, sample preparation, micro- and paper-fluidic device design and manufacturing for multiplexed sample processing. Further, the assay must be designed with the needs of the end users, community health workers and clinicians. Implementation of this test in the field will ultimately unable healthcare providers in under-resourced settings to obtain relevant clinical insights, including cervical cancer risk stratification, and enable same-visit treatment of high-risk cervical lesions.
Start Date
3/1/2020
Postdoc Qualifications
Applicants should have a Ph.D. degree in relevant Engineering, biochemistry, Biology, or related fields. Prior experience in bioassay development, lateral flow immunoassays, human-centered design or point-of-care device development is required. A Masters in Public Health or graduate certificate in global health are preferred. Strong oral and written communication skills are required. The candidate should be highly motivated with the ambition and commitment to excel in a highly cooperative, interdisciplinary, and productive translational research environment.
Co-Advisors
Jacqueline Linnes, Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, https://engineering.purdue.edu/LinnesLab
Sulma Mohammed, Comparative Pathobiology, Veterinary Medicine
References
Ren W, Mohammed SI, Wereley S, Irudayaraj J. Magnetic Focus Lateral Flow Sensor for Detection of Cervical Cancer Biomarkers. Anal Chem. 2019 Feb 19;91(4):2876-2884. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.8b04848
Mohammed SI, Ren W, Flowers L, Rajwa B, Chibwesha CJ, Parham GP, Irudayaraj JM. Point-of-care test for cervical cancer in LMICs. Oncotarget. 2016 Apr 5;7(14):18787-97. doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.7709
Byers KM, Bird AR, Cho HD, Linnes JC. Fully Dried Two-Dimensional Paper Network for Enzymatically Enhanced Detection of Nucleic Acid Amplicons. ACS Omega. 2020 Feb 26;5(9):4673-4681. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.0c00115