This invention will be used to exploit electron-paramagnetic-resonance (EPR) as a new approach for rapid diagnostic tests (RDTS) of malaria. The idea is to use RF interference processes to boost EPR sensor sensitivity by more than 103 times for rapid characterization of malaria pigment hemzoin in a single parasitized red-blood-cell (RBC) in blood-plasma.
The proposed idea is unconventional because (i) it is a resonator-less method that boosts EPR sensor sensitivity and time-resolution by orders of magnitude with liquid samples, (ii) it enables multi-frequency EPR scheme to significantly enhance EPR information contents, and (iii) EPR has not been used for malaria diagnostics. These EPR sensors are expected to be quantitative, accurate, portable, easy to operate, and rugged to deploy. Compared with current EPR spectrometer techniques, these EPR sensors are expected to be orders-of-magnitude more sensitive with sub-millisecond time-resolutions. Also, compared with the recent magneto-optic technology (MOT) detection approach, our quantitative method has single-cell sensitivity.
Applications:
· Clinical diagnoses of malaria
· EPR systems as chemistry instruments
Benefits:
· Non-invasiveness
· Portability
· More sensitive than current EPR techniques
· Low cost
Inventors: Pingshan Wang, Yuxi He, David Moline, Jiwei Sun
Protection Status: Patent application filed
Licensing Status: Available for licensing
CURF Ref No: 2012-053
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