IBSC - BME PhD Preliminary Exam Announcement for Navaporn Sritong (J. Linnes, advisor) Title: Point-of-care viral molecular detection on paper-based platforms Everyone is invited to attend the public presentation beginning at 2:00 pm. Date: 09/23/2022 Time: 2:00 pm Location: MRGN 121 and Zoom https://purdue-edu.zoom.us/my/jlinnes Committee Members: Jacqueline C. Linnes (Chair) Tamara L. Kinzer-Ursem Natalia M. Rodriguez Mohit S. Verma Abstract: Despite the high demand for paper-based point-of-care diagnostics, the limitation in sensitivity is one of the ongoing challenges that can hamper the lab-to-market translation. In this project, I propose to develop 2 detection systems to improve clinical sensitivity and analytical sensitivity of two pathogens: SARS-CoV-2 in saliva and HIV in whole blood. With the surging number of COVID-19 tests, false-negative results have been reported. Integrating internal amplification control (IAC) into an assay can mitigate false-negative due to technical errors. While extensive review papers on paper-based NAATs for SARS-CoV-2 have been published, only a few publications included IAC in their studies. Incorporating IAC on paper-based NAATs is challenging owing to limited one-pot multiplex detection capability on the paper-based platform. Herein, I will develop a one-pot duplex reverse transcriptase loop-mediated isothermal amplification assay by using SARS-CoV-2 as a target and an 18s rRNA in human saliva as IAC on a fully integrated paper-based device. Due to limited sensitivity, existing paper-based rapid diagnostic tests for HIV screening cannot detect a low quantity of p24, viral capsid proteins, in acute HIV infection (AHI). Here, an antibody-initiated loop-mediated isothermal nucleic acid amplification (ai-LAMP) will be developed to offer a novel sensitive platform for AHI. In the presence of p24, viral capsid presenting in the virion in larger quantities than viral RNA, two antibody-partial DNA probes will be in close proximity allowing the completed DNA target to form and trigger the LAMP reaction. The LFIA will be integrated into this design to enable simple result visualization.