Background
Fungi infection is considered a threat to human and environmental health on a global level. There is a large variance of environmental and physiological conditions contributing to the development of fungal diseases, which creates a broad need worldwide to diagnose fungal infections accurately and rapidly. The most common human infections occur from fungal spores through cuts, wounds, burns, inhalation, or localized colonization of the skin. Agricultural and environmental fungal infections constitute the largest number of plant pathogens and have a broad range of challenges for accurate diagnosis.
Description
This invention proposes a new method to detect fungus in a sample by testing samples using an antibody against the backbone of fungal mannan (mannan is a cell wall polysaccharide found in yeasts and fungi and is serologically similar to structures found on mammalian glycoproteins). This technology enables a new approach to develop sensitive/specific immunoassays, or a low cost, easy to operate diagnostic service that can be used by healthcare and laboratory professionals to diagnose invasive fungal diseases.
Moreover, it has potentially many other applications in veterinary health, agricultural health, building material checkup, and even as a laboratory reagent (research antibody).
Advantages
- Rapid and specific detection of common fungal infections for Dermatophytes, Mucorales and other fungi
- Potential development of an accurate diagnostic device or laboratory kit for fungal infection in patient, agricultural, or environmental samples.
Patents
- Fungal Detection using Mannan Epitope
US16/776,995
