Filtering by
Current methods for IgG antibody detection include enzyme immunoassays (EIA) such as the commercially available Diamedix Immunosimplicity® Measles IgG test kit and the Diamedix Immunosimplicity® Mumps IgG test kit. EIAs generally provide high sensitivity and strong specificity, however, there is a need for rapid screening of measles and mumps specific immunity in outbreak and resource-limited areas which could be solved by use a point-of-care (POC) platform.
This study aims to optimize a point-of-care device for the multiplexed detection of MeV, MuV, and RuV IgG antibodies in sera and to compare the sensitivity to commercial enzyme immunoassays. The IgG antibody levels to MeV and MuV were measured using EIA test kits for a total of 44 healthy serum samples. Of the samples, 6% were seronegative for MeV-specific IgG antibodies and 75% were seronegative for MuV-specific antibodies, showing low correlation of IgG antibody levels between both viruses.
To improve the sensitivity of the POC device, multiple conjugated fluorescent secondary antibodies were tested with different surface chemistries. Signal detection was measured using the pre-developed four-site slide reader. Preliminary data show that Nile Red microspheres provide robust signal detection and should be the secondary antibody of choice when sera are tested for IgG antibodies using the POC platform in future work.
Energy Expenditure (EE) (kcal/day) is a key parameter used to guide obesity treatment, and it is often measured from CO2 production, VCO2 (mL/min), and/or O2 consumption, VO2 (mL/min) through the principles of indirect calorimetry. Current EE measurement technologies are limited due to the requirement of wearable facial accessories, which can introduce errors as measurements are not taken under free-living conditions. A novel contactless system, the SmartPad, which measures EE via VCO2 from a room’s ambient CO2 concentration transients was evaluated. First, SmartPad accuracy was validated by comparing the SmartPad’s EE and VCO2 measurements with the measurements of a reference instrument, the MGC Ultima CPXTM, in a cross-sectional study consisting of 20 subjects. A high correlation between the SmartPad’s EE and VCO2 measurements and the MGC Ultima CPX’s EE and VCO2 measurements was found, and the Bland-Altman plots contained a low mean bias for EE and VCO2 measurements. Thus, the SmartPad was validated as being accurate for VCO2 and EE measurements. Next, resting EE (REE) and exercise VCO2 measurements were recorded using the SmartPad and the MGC Ultima CPXTM at different operating CO2 threshold ranges to investigate the influence of measurement duration on system accuracy in an effort to optimize the SmartPad system. The SmartPad displayed 90% accuracy (±1 SD) for 14–19 min of REE measurement and for 4.8–7.0 min of exercise, using a known room’s air exchange rate. Additionally, the SmartPad was validated by accurately measuring subjects’ REE across a wide range of body mass indexes (BMI = 18.8 to 31.4 kg/m^2) with REEs ranging from ~1200 to ~3000 kcal/day. Lastly, the SmartPad has been used to assess the physical fitness of subjects via the “Contactless Thermodynamic Efficiency Test” (CTET).
The Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) is a protein on the surface of cells that is a large component of the adaptive immune response as it helps recognize foreign pathogenic material. We wonder if a set of primers designed for each HLA type could be used to amplify a wide spectrum of HLA to improve sequencing of HLA to improve HLA-typing access. We propose the use of an HLA allele panel to determine the pulldown capacity of the primers followed by MinION sequencing and also offer a multiplexing design for running 96 patients at once. Our results show that primers can capture Class I HLA alleles and typing was successful with an average alignment accuracy of 91.7%. In conclusion this method for HLA capture could be utilized for HLA-typing with material costs of under $3.00 per sample within 3 days.