Canvas was recently on the winning team with GeneCapture Inc. for a $250,000 Phase I Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) contract to develop a rapid portable Infection Diagnostic (ID) and Antibiotic Susceptibility Test (AST) for the Defense Health Agency (DHA) to enable medical providers of various skill levels to receive quick answers about diagnosis and effective treatment strategies for injured warfighters in austere environments.
GeneCapture and Canvas will use the CAPTURE assay (Confirm Active Pathogens Through Unamplified RNA Expression) to identify the pathogens in wound infections. The CAPTURE assay uses immobilized stem loop probes, or captors, that are designed to bind to the pathogenic RNA (ribonucleic acid) on a microarray before indicating the presence and concentration of pathogens through fluorescence. The pathogens of interest in this project are known as the ESKAPE pathogens (Enterococcus spp., Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumonia, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Enterobacter spp., and Escherichia coli).
“Canvas is very excited to continue our work with GeneCapture to support prolonged field care and better outcomes for the Warfighter, as well as to be a part of tackling a huge worldwide problem – antimicrobial resistance. Wound infections pose a serious threat to our Warfighters, and we are going to be working on providing faster care and better care with precise treatment recommendations,” states Canvas Project Manager Emily Mason.
Canvas brings software development, artificial intelligence, machine learning, image processing, and microbiology expertise to the team to assist GeneCapture in developing microarray-based pathogen fingerprints developed from CAPTURE assay data. Canvas will also help test simulated wound samples for the presence of ESKAPE pathogens and help develop a novel AST method that reports effective antibiotics for specific infectious pathogens present in the sample. Canvas and GeneCapture have worked together on previous projects to further develop GeneCapture’s ID and AST prototypes and look forward to continuing their partnership to provide better care for the Warfighter.
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