Abstract

From Epitopes to Antigens: Expanding the Capabilities of E-DNA Switches in Diagnostics

Claudio Parolo, Research Fellow, University of California Santa Barbara

Being antibodies one of the widest and most versatile class of diagnostic biomarkers, there is a surprising lack of technologies by which we can measure the levels of multiple diagnostic antibodies at the point of care during the few minute timeframe of a typical patient/provider interaction. In response, we developed just such a technology (called E-DNA switches), which is reagentless, single-step, selective enough to deploy in high-concentration blood serum, miniaturizable and fast (the equilibration time constant of antibodies is a few minutes). In this presentation, I will show how we used the E-DNA switches technology for the detection of multiple HIV- and Syphilis-specific antibodies in real patient samples. I will also compare our results with those of the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), proving that we can obtain high quality diagnosis using a point-of-care platform.