The overarching goal of the partnership between the NIH and the University of Washington?s (UW) Washington Entrepreneurial Research, Evaluation, and Commercialization Hub (referred to as WE-REACH) is to facilitate and accelerate the transformation of health research innovations into products. This NIH funded WE-REACH Center is a National Center for REACH in the Northwest region. Two key objectives of the Center are to (1) assist investigators with innovative technologies to establish proof-of-product concept definition and (2) facilitating the formation of spinout companies on track to develop self-sustaining structures. With well- established expertise, know-how, and infrastructure, this proposal plans to assist the Research and Development of the following two Covid-19 diagnostic test candidates: (1) Low-cost moderate-throughput Covid-19 nucleic acid sequence test (2180-Lutz) (2) Highly sensitive and specific immunoresistive sensor for point-of-care screening of COVID- 19 antigen (protein) (2640-Chung) The two technically sound approaches employ point-of-care device candidates intended to detect viral RNA sequences or viral antigens without having to send samples to a centralized facility (preventing a long wait-time for results). WE-REACH will assist investigators in developing milestone-driven, stage-gated, activity-based project planning and tracking to accelerate proof- of-product concept studies within 1-year of funding. The study results will provide measurable outcomes that are deemed sufficient for upscaling and should be appropriate for follow-on funding.
This supplement is intended to support and assist two investigators with developing technically- ready, innovative Covid-19 diagnostic tests to accelerate product research and development plans. This will help ensure that portable, easy to use devices and reagents will be available for implementation outside of hospitals and clinical laboratories and thus accessible in the community to readily identify infected individuals locally and at the point-of-contact (in minutes, instead of days). The availability of such easy-to-use tests with such rapid turn-around times could prevent spread of Covid-19 world-wide.
