Project description
Mobile device for swine disease diagnosis
Effective drugs and vaccines have reduced the direct burden of livestock diseases in developed countries. However, overpopulated modern animal production systems remain vulnerable to infectious agents and diseases that may have severe consequences for animal health and farming. To address the threat of disease outbreaks, the EU-funded SWINOSTICS project proposes the development of an on-site diagnostic tool that provides results for six different virus-associated swine diseases within minutes. The nanotechnology-based biosensing device uses antibodies to rapidly assess multiple samples simultaneously, overcoming the laborious conventional testing process. The high sensitivity and specificity of the SWINOSTICS tool will allow local decision-making to prevent the spread of diseases.
Objective
The increased population density in modern animal production systems has made them vulnerable to various transboundary infectious agents & diseases. During the last decades in the developed world, a reduction in the direct burden of livestock diseases has been observed, because of more effective drugs & vaccines. However, the total impact may actually be increasing, because in a highly-interconnected world, the effects of diseases extend far beyond animal sickness & mortality. Therefore, early diagnosis and establishment of reliable countermeasures to infectious disease outbreaks is essential to limit severe biophysical and socio-economic consequences.
To date, the time between initial disease outbreak and laboratory confirmation of the etiologic infectious agent can be up to several weeks. Reliable & simple diagnostic testing directly on site would enable rapid local decision making, which is crucial to prevent further spreading of the disease.
Silicon-based Photonic Integrated Circuits (PIC) have been demonstrated as a powerful platform for biosensing systems. In combination with integrated monoclonal antibodies, they can provide portable multiplex detection of proteins with sensitivity & specificity previously not realized. SWINOSTICS addresses the sector needs, by developing a novel field diagnostic device, based on advanced, proven, bio-sensing technologies to tackle viruses causing epidemics in swine farms and leading to relevant economic damages, complying to the objectives of the STAR-IDAZ. The diagnostic device will allow threat assessment at the farm level, with the analytical quality of commercial laboratories. The device will be developed for a panel of 6 important swine diseases. The device will be portable & will provide results in 10 minutes for 5 samples simultaneously, making it highly suitable for field use. It is based on 3 lab-verified concepts: a) PIC technology, b) Label-free optical detection, c) patented nano-deposition technology.
Fields of science
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbiochemistrybiomoleculesnucleic acids
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencesinfectious diseasesRNA virusesinfluenza
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacypharmaceutical drugsvaccines
- engineering and technologymedical engineeringmedical laboratory technologydiagnostic technologies
- agricultural sciencesanimal and dairy sciencedomestic animalsanimal husbandry
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
IA - Innovation actionCoordinator
1060 Lefkosia
Cyprus
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.