{"id":40342,"date":"2021-04-05T11:56:58","date_gmt":"2021-04-05T15:56:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seniordesign.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/bme2021\/?p=79"},"modified":"2022-04-13T10:07:50","modified_gmt":"2022-04-13T14:07:50","slug":"virion-biomedical-technologies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hajim.rochester.edu\/senior-design-day\/virion-biomedical-technologies\/","title":{"rendered":"Cost-Effective HIV Viral Load Assay"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Problem Statement<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Viriotech Biomedical Engineering is designing a cassette for a cost-effective human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) viral load assay. While there has been a steady global decrease in HIV mortality since the turn of the 21st century, sub-Saharan African communities remain disproportionately affected by HIV partly due to limited access to medical resources. Current technology requires patients to wait several days for expensive test results. This wait presents challenges in communities far from health clinics. Our mission is to design a cassette for an HIV viral load assay that allows us to provide quick, more affordable HIV testing for more people in low-resource communities. We are collaborating with Dr. Benjamin Miller and Jeffrey Beard at the University of Rochester Medical Center to develop this device. Our end-users are the healthcare workers in clinics. They will determine a patient\u2019s viral load based on a fluorescence readout. A patient\u2019s blood sample runs through multiple microfluidics paper layers that capture the viral RNA in a detection layer. This cassette incorporates a readout method that uses smartphone technology to determine HIV virion concentration in the blood. Our device has materials that withstand high temperature and humidity environments like in sub-Saharan Africa. Ultimately, this project impacts communities without essential resources in healthcare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n