PORTFOLIO

Malaria is one of the deadliest parasitic diseases worldwide. Improved diagnostics are needed to help eradicate it, more specifically by detecting submicroscopic levels of infection during mass screenings in order to identify hidden parasitic reservoirs present in asymptomatic carriers.
The business aim of this project is to develop a highly sensitive, inexpensive, portable, and robust diagnostic tool for malaria parasite detection in human blood. This will be accomplished thanks to a patented method of detecting the malaria biomarker - a molecule found only in infected subjects - by using it as a catalyst for chemical amplification. This method allows us to detect submicroscopic malarial infections, enabling successful malaria eradication campaigns.
Further innovations are required to enhance the diagnostic procedure and ensure market entry. To succeed, three milestones must be reached: (a) a preparatory step to easily isolate the parasite from the patient’s blood; (b) optimization of the chemical amplification to maximize the diagnostic sensitivity and reduce reaction time, (c) inclusion of these elements into the diagnostic protocol. Finally, we will validate the diagnostic tool with patient samples in clinical studies in regions where malaria is endemic. These critical innovations are part of the business case needed to guarantee customer acceptance and generate wider interest.

The proposed method is radically different from current diagnostics. It relies on catalytic amplification of the pan-malarial biomarker, yielding an optical readout by the formation of turbidity. It combines high sensitivity while relying on low-cost chemicals, making it suitable to be used for screening large groups and to detect asymptomatic carriers of the parasite with submicroscopic infection. The implementation of this diagnostic would considerably fasten eradication of malaria worldwide.

During the course of the Gebert Rüf project a novel malaria diagnostic protocol has been developed including the following elements:
- Paper-based isolation of hemozoin from the blood
- Miniaturized assay with dried reagents
- Hand-held device to read the turbidity formation
The optimization of the chemistry assay brought its time to results down to 400 s (1 hour previously) while conserving a limit of detection of 10 parasites L-1. The amount of blood sample needed for the test was reduced 5 times. The overall protocol can now be carried out within 20 minutes by a technician with modest training and does not require heavy instrumentation. With this new protocol, the team could successfully diagnose malaria infections caused by P. Vivax during a series of field test in Porto Velho, Brazil.
The project is continuing through an Innosuisse grant to further improve the performance of the assay, produce multiple diagnostic kits and validate them in several malaria-endemic sites as a first step for market entry.

Hemozoin-catalyzed precipitation polymerization as an assay for malaria diagnosis, Nature Communications Volume 10, Article number: 1369 (2019)

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Uni de Fribourg: nouvelle méthode pour détecter la malaria, La Liberté, 11.04.2019
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