While populating the technology pipeline is a task in which all the cores are engaged, the Technology Development (TD) core's mission is critically dependent upon maintaining an input pipeline of technologies with a potential value as point of care (POC) technologies. As a continuing effort in this proposal, TD core will continue to seek out research facilities, small start-up companies and large diagnostics companies whose technology could be applied to the rapid analysis of nucleic acid or protein targets. The TD core will inform them about the commercial opportunities afforded by the market for sexually transmitted infections (STI) POCT and about the types of support for STI test development that the Johns Hopkins Center for Point of Care Tests (POCT ) for sexually transmitted diseases (STD) offers. The TD core will manage solicitations to fund new sub awards (at least three per year (years 2-5) from birth to completion. The underlying goal of these sub awards is to fund technologies which if successful in their development will have a significant impact on the delivery of health care in a variety of operational environments. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU APL) has demonstrated success in this area over the past 5 years with over 80% of the companies awarded tactical $50K sub awards receiving follow on funding in excess of $100K to sustain development of their POCT. In a new task which arose from lessons learned during the last 5 year funding period, the TD core will take a more active role in technology development by applying JHU APL's extensive expertise in systems engineering (SE). SE is a method commonly used to understand and improve the outcomes of highly complex systems when they are required to interact with each other. Applying techniques such as failure mode evaluation analysis (FMEA) and the Delphi methods, JHU APL will apply SE techniques to assist with resolution of Go/No Go transitions in the Center's pipeline and for forecasting the impact of POCT adoption under various operational conditions respectively. Finally, the TD core will offer system engineering review (SER) to organizations building STI POCT. JHU APL will administer a second type of solicitation to competitively award SE reviews. Industry surveys conducted in the last 5 years indicate that a majority of POCT community would participate in this type of activity if offered at no cost to them. SERs would be a new resource offered by the Center to the POCT community.
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