Small Business: Microbial Diagnostics, Detection and Decontamination – DCAI (13)

Topics

• Technological and/or conceptual innovations for the detection or quantitation of bacteria, viruses (including HIV), eukaryotic pathogens, and prions.
• Novel platforms (molecular or immunological assays/devices) for simultaneous detection of pathogens and, antimicrobial drug susceptibility and resistance
• Point-of-care, point-of-need, and point-of-use microbial detection and quantitation systems
• Development of novel agents or methods to detect and quantitate pathogens embedded within biofilms in vivo and on medical devices
• Detection and quantitation of pathogens and toxins of microbial origin in food or drinking water
• Advances in sterilization, decontamination or disinfection technologies
• Development of novel applications for microbial bioremediation

Shared Interests and Overlaps:

There are shared interests with Anti-Infective Therapeutics [DCAI (12)] in the area of microbiology of infectious agents. Small business applications that seek to develop antibiotic agents that include effectiveness in the context of biofilms may be reviewed in DCAI (12). Applications addressing the development of agents or methods to detect or combat biofilms in vivo and on medical devices may be reviewed here.

There are shared interests with Biological Chemistry, Biophysics, and Assay Development [MCST (10)] in the area of assay development. Small business applications that focus on fundamental assay development or disease-agnostic assays may be assigned to MCST (10) whereas applications that focus on microbial diagnostics may be reviewed here.

There are shared interests with Instrumentation, Environmental, and Occupational Safety [MCST (12)] in the areas of device development and environmental monitoring. Applications that focus on microbial diagnostics or environmental microbial monitoring may be reviewed DCAI (13), whereas fundamental device development or assays/instrumentation for other types of environmental monitoring may be assigned to MCST (12).

There are shared interests with Computational, Modeling, and Biodata Management [MCST (14)] in the areas of quantitative microbial detection. Applications that focus on advancing bioinformatic, computational and modeling technologies for microbial detection may be reviewed in MCST (14), whereas applications that apply existing technologies may be reviewed here.