20 Aug New NCATS-Supported Test Could Provide Faster Diagnosis of Deadly Disease
Every year, diarrheal disease kills more than 1 million people, mostly children in the developing world. To treat the illness effectively, health care providers need to know its cause. Currently, a diagnosis requires sending a stool sample to a lab for expensive tests, then waiting to find out if the patient has a bacterial or viral infection, a parasite, or some other problem. By the time the results come back, the patient has missed days of potentially lifesaving treatment.
To address this challenge, Chang Hee Kim, Ph.D., co-founded the biotechnology company GoDx with a mission to develop a simple paper test for diarrheal disease. The test does not need electricity and can detect seven common causes of diarrhea in less than 30 minutes.
GoDx has a clinical cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) to develop the product with Wendy A. Henderson, Ph.D., M.S.N., C.R.N.P., a digestive diseases researcher at NIH’s National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR).