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This work started a long time ago...a really long time ago.
We are trying to develop a test to detect tuberculosis rapidly.
And we've developed one, and it's worked quite nicely.
The problem was, it was difficult to use because it involved working at the bench here
and that's really not where TB is diagnosed.
So then we spent a number of years working to adapt that test to a simple cartridge
system which is really a laboratory in a cartridge.
Finally got that to work after, after working to rise the funding and
getting a bunch of collaborators together.
And then got the clinical trials done, and it looks like it's a very good test.
And finally it made WHO approval so it's probably going to be used in a lot of places.
When TB was discovered, it was discovered by observing bacteria under a microscope.
And essentially, that microscope is still in use to this day.
And the problem with that technology is that it takes a long time to
diagnose one case of TB.
You have to look at 100 to 200 high power fields in the microscope, and that can take
upwards to 20 to 30 minutes per sample.
And it can't detect all cases of tuberculosis.
It wasn't bad in the days before ***, but now that we have ***, about between 40 to 60
percent of cases can't be diagnosed under the microscope.
Our test on the other hand, takes two minutes of hands-on-time.
The whole test takes about two hours.
And not only does it give us data on whether it was TB or not, which is far more
sensitive than the microscope, but it also tells us if there's drug resistance.
When TB comes into a laboratory, it comes in a sputum cup,
which I will show by using my hand.
And when the sputum is in the cup, you take a reagent, that we developed, and you pour
it into the cup.
You seal the cup and you shake it.
You put in on the bench for fifteen minutes.
Okay, it's not too hard to do.
And then, you take one of these cartridges.
You open it up.
You take a pipette and you'll pipette from the cup into the cartridge.
Close the lid and put it into this machine here.
Close the door, press a button and that's it.
Everything else is done automatically.
In this country when we think someone has tuberculosis, we bring them to the hospital.
We put them in an isolation room and we collect three sputum samples.
And only when the third sputum sample is negative for TB by microscopy,
we let them out of the room.
That usually takes 3 to 5 days.
So you have a sick patient in an isolation room, where people put on masks
and gloves to go into the room.
We are hoping to show soon that with this test, you can do one test in the emergency
room and decide right then and there whether they have TB and need to be in isolation.
Whether they don't and go onto the wards.
It's a huge savings in cost and a huge saving, potentially in
morbidity and mortality for patients.
In the developing world where there's lots more tuberculosis and ***, there are other
places where this can really be life saving.
It turns out if you take someone with *** and treat them with *** medicines, they have
tuberculosis and advanced ***, the TB actually takes off, and they can die
very quickly of tuberculosis.
And this group of patients is a group that is hardest to detect TB in.
Usually, they are microscopy negative.
So essentially we're treating people for *** and they are dying of tuberculosis without
it being diagnosed.
They are dying within weeks.
So with this test we can hopefully, this hasn't been proven, screen patients who are
getting treated for ***, catch their tuberculosis and treat that too.
And it's going to make *** therapy in Africa much safer.