Talking Biotech Podcast 363
Rapid Detection of Sexually Transmitted Infections with Microfluidics - Dr. Anna Dixon

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Kevin Folta: [00:00:00] Hi everybody. And welcome to this. Week's talking biotech podcast, by Collabra. now this week, the star of the show is technology. How can molecular reactions run somewhere between microliter and nanoliter levels on a chip be used to diagnose disease? now there's many advantages to this kind of onsite point of contact testing, especially for some specific diseases, things like sexually transmitted infections. And these are places where a patient may be hesitant to be visiting a clinic because they fear an invasive procedure or, or worse being spotted reading last year's time magazine on a college campus clinic, you know, just by waiting to see a physician for some sort of an examin.

the literature is clear. Rapid point of care testing means that patients are more likely to be tested and is all facilitated by a tiny laboratory on a chip [00:01:00] today's guest is Dr. Anna Dixon. She's the chief technology officer of Binx health. Welcome to the podcast Dr. Dixon. all right. 

Anna Dixon: Great. Nice to meet you.

Good to be here. 

Kevin Folta: Yeah, it's really nice that you're here. I really was fascinated by learning more about banks and about some of the, some strategies you that you've presented. And for me, it was a little bit surprising because I was a teenager in the eighties and went to college, you know, in the end of the eighties.

And it, it seemed like. There was circulating bugs, like chlamydia gonorrhea that these things really fell off the radar because of HIV. And then as people started to engage in more safe sex practices, that these things kind of went away. You know, we didn't have these things anymore. So are these kinds of sexually transmitted infections, really still a.

Anna Dixon: They really are. And in fact, it's, it's interesting having just come out of the COVID 19 pandemic that actually the [00:02:00] SDI epidemic is just getting worse and worse. And there's some really astonishing statistics. If, if you look, you know, just not only across the world, but in specific locations, like in the us currently one in five people in the.

Has an STI that's totally nearly 68 million infections just in 2018 alone. So this problem in terms of STI infections is, is actually getting worse and not better. And it's some astonishing statistics, not just in things like chlamydia gonorrhea. But in other infections, such as HPV, SIS, and HIV, that the rates are actually continuing to grow.

And it's costing a lot of money as well. It's, it's really surprising that, you know, new STI are, are costing the us alone. Nearly 16 billion in, in direct medical costs. So not only is this, is this a huge public health burden, but it's also costing a huge amount of money as the infection rate continues to grow.

So whilst these infections are, are historic and it's things that people have heard about, you know, from the past, they're [00:03:00] still very, very prevalent these days and it's, it's an issue that's not getting better. And so banks is really trying to be part of that to, to really try and tackle the problem in a new.

Kevin Folta: It is an innovative strategy and what's kind of funny. I'm here in Florida USA. And one of the hotbeds for these types of infections are really in these older retirement communities. Down here, we have just loaded in these areas that these places where they're mostly retirees who are spending their time passing around infections, is that true in other places?

Anna Dixon: It is true in other places. And we see rising rates of STIs, particularly in things like syphilis in the older age groups. And of course we need to be tackling across the broad range of people that are having these infections. But certainly if you look at the, the age groups where the real problems are, where the rates are getting worse, it really is amongst young people.

And if you look at the statistics again, cuz they really say it. Almost half [00:04:00] of new S STIs are among the, the youth group that are in the age, 15 to 24 range, certainly in the us. And this, this partly goes to our, our testing strategy is that these young people are not getting tested for these infections, which is why rates are continuing to grow.

But, you know, if you just think of the impact on that age group, that half of all new STIs are among people age 15 to 24, it's it's really serious position that we. 

Kevin Folta: It really is. It's what are some of the effects that occur when people who are younger maintain these STIs and spread them. And what is the long term impact on their own personal health?

Anna Dixon: Sure. So it, it really depends what infections we are talking about, but certainly in general STDs can have a grave effect particularly on women. Certainly if you have, for example, chlamydia, gonorrhea and other STIs, they can actually increase your risk of getting HIV. So you know, that's a very serious risk of course, but then when you are specifically looking [00:05:00] at things like chlamydia, it can.

Can occur long term PLV and abdominal. It can cause infertility, it can cause the inability to, to get pregnant or have pregnancy complications such as early or premature birth. So, you know, these infections whilst, you know, potentially young people don't think they're serious, they can have lifelong consequences.

And you know, this is part of the issue in terms of the healthcare burden that it's costing particularly in the. Where it's not just addressing the fact that you have to medicate those that are infected, but the long term costs of treating those people that have ha that have had a prolonged and untreated infection can be really very serious.

Kevin Folta: And you mentioned this idea of, of healthcare costs, but are there other social costs as well? I mean, are there other impacts that are happening because there are, is such a high prevalence of these types of disease. 

Anna Dixon: Absolutely. You know 1, 1, 1 thing that is exacerbating the situation of course, is the fact that [00:06:00] people aren't getting tested because sexually transmitted infections are, you know, often seen as bad things to have.

So people are cautious and, and don't access healthcare because they're embarrassed to go and get a test. And this is part of the problem as to why the rates continue to grow because people are embarrassed and scared to go and get a. So opening accessibility testing is absolutely crucial in tackling this problem and making it very normal for people to go and get a test and make it part of their normal healthcare routine.

As soon as you start to make something behind a closed curtain. People are not gonna access that testing. And the problem will only get worse. So really important that people see testing as a very normal thing to go and do. 

Kevin Folta: So it's kind of a, a question of people having a stigma attached to the testing itself, but are the tests really kind of invasive and something that people just want to avoid?

Because they seem like they're a problem. Like how are they currently testing and what are those [00:07:00] limitations to the. 

Anna Dixon: Sure. So currently at the moment, most people who go for an STI test, they would attend a clinic and they would have a sample potentially taken by a clinician. Or in some cases they can self collect their sample, but more often than not, they will have a sample collected by a clinician.

And you know, they'll have to go and sit and wait in that clinic. They'll, you know, be in a waiting room amongst others where maybe they don't wanna be seen. In case they bump into someone that they don't know, and they may be there for quite a long period of. Waiting for their appointment waiting to see the clinician and waiting for that sample to be taken typically depending on whether someone has symptoms or.

For example, a female, they may have a pelvic exam which can be quite intrusive and they'll have typically a vaginal swab taken. And then for male patients, that's typically a urine sample and the process that they would go through is they would have that sample taken that would get sent off to a, a central.

Reference lab. And it may take many days for that test result to come back. Typically, [00:08:00] in some cases it may be five, seven, or even longer, sometimes 12 to 14 days for that result to come back. And of course, if that person's positive they then have to make that return visit to go and get their medication and go back to the doctors again and, and, you know, potentially again, bump into someone that they may not want to see and make that second visit.

So the whole process at the moment is quite cumber. It takes time. And it means the time between that person having their sample taken and the time that they may get that medication, they could be transmitting that infection to somebody else or to, to multiple people, or they could be developing some of the symptoms that we talked about in terms of untreated infection.

So the current scenario, the current gold standard of care, where there's a, a time gap between taking your sample and then getting that result is really where the current problem. 

Kevin Folta: Well, when you mentioned the possibility of running into somebody, you know, and that kind of thing, and the demographics of younger people who are maintaining these infections, at least in [00:09:00] the us, does that really kind of tie in with maybe these are most circulating between say college students who are all in one place where they're likely to see each other inside a clinic.

And it, it are the habits of younger people changing kind of getting away from safe sex. And maybe being more likely to spread these things because they're not using proper barrier protect. 

Anna Dixon: It can, it can be, it can be a multitude of factors that includes, but also the, the knowledge and the education about when and how to get tested and certainly accessibility to testing is key.

You know, everyone knows that young college students they're short on time. They're very. Busy. They want to be doing things with their friends. They don't want to be in the healthcare center waiting for appointments and, you know, potentially, like we said, running into their friends. And so, you know, the, the epidemic that we see now is a combination of factors, but certainly regular screening and ensuring people get tested on a regular basis can help solve the problem.

And in fact, CDC [00:10:00] recommend that all females in the age group of 15 to 24, Get tested once a year. And at the moment, 80% of young people are not getting tested. So you can imagine a scenario where more people get tested every year and you start to eradicate that infection in groups of people you stop that onward transmission.

So a multitude of factors, but certainly really important to have that accessibility to testing and for people to know that they can get tested and where to go to do. 

Kevin Folta: So all of this setup has really been to introduce the B's test and this test that allows an onsite, very rapid test that allows an individual to understand their current status in terms of a couple of different infections.

So could you describe what this 30 minute test is and how sample collection works? Is this really something that's less invasive? 

Anna Dixon: Yeah, absolutely. So what we've done at at banks is we've taken what normally happens across, like we said, one or perhaps [00:11:00] two weeks to go from sample collection to result.

We've shrunk that time down into 30 minutes. While still retaining the high accuracy that you need to have when you're trying to detect an SDI and what we've developed at BI we've developed an instrument, a small desktop size instrument called the bins IO and a single use cartridge. And what that cartridge instrument combination does is it allows us to test for both chlamydia and gonorrhea in only 30 minutes.

And we do that by collecting a sample in the traditional way, a vaginal swab for a female or a urine sample for a male, but we have the advantage that they can be self collected or they, they can be clinician collected. But the advantage there that a female patient can go and take their own sample if they wish.

And what happens with BX. I is once that sampler has taken the clinician or the, the person working in the clinic will add that patient sample to our single use cartridge and put the cartridge into our instrument. They would press a few [00:12:00] buttons and add the patient ID, for example. Pres go walk away from the machine.

And in about 30 minutes, they would get that result on the screen. And what that means is they're able to then act on that result and be able to prescribe medication to that person. Should they be positive? But the technology underneath the hood of the instrument is really very clever. If you can imagine we've shrunk, what would normally happen in the lab over a, maybe four to five hour period with a laboratory technician into a fully automated system that anyone can use?

Kevin Folta: Yeah, so nice and easy. Just plug in the cartridge, give a little bit of a sample and let the machine take it from there. So we're speak . So we're speaking with Dr. Anna Dixon. She's the chief technology officer of banks health. This is collaborates talking biotech podcast, and we'll be back in just a moment.

And now we're back on collaborates talking biotech podcast. We're speaking with Dr. Anna Dixon. She's the chief technology officer [00:13:00] of Banks's health. And we're talking about a rapid detection technique that allows in clinic detection. Of specific, sexually transmitted diseases, which is really important because they're gaining an incidence and you're seeing more and more cases of it.

Yet people are being tested less and less. And some of the key demographics are spreading the disease at an alarming rate. We talked about this before the break. It's a cartridge that goes into a machine in a clinic that is able to detect a number of different sexually transmitted infection pathogens.

So could you tell me first, like what pathogens does it screen? 

Anna Dixon: Sure. So the B I test screens for both chlamydia and gonorrhea in the same test at the same time. And what we're able to also do is check that the cartridge works correctly by having an internal process, internal processing control, onboard that cartridge.

Kevin Folta: Yeah. It's really interesting stuff. So how is the detection. Actually [00:14:00] happening. I mean, you're taking a sample, as you mentioned before and getting this onto a cartridge, putting that cartridge in the machine then is this like a microfluidics thing or how does it happen that all this magic happens on one cartridge in 30 minutes?

Anna Dixon: Sure. So it's a PCR based test and it really works. By the interaction of the single use cartridge with the instrument. It is a microfluidic test, so there's lots of channels onboard the cartridge, and we essentially move the liquid rounds and pneumatic control which is controlled by the instrument.

Onboard the cartridge. We have dry down reagents and they're reconstituted as the liquid moves around the cartridge. And there's really essentially three different parts to our cartridge. There's an area at the beginning, which is called sample prep. That's where we take the DNA from the sample. Once it's been added by the user.

And once that DNA has been extracted from that patient sample it then travels through the cartridge to an area that. Use called the [00:15:00] PCR chamber and it's an area of the cartridge where we take the DNA that we've extracted from the patient sample. If it's present. And we're able to copy it many millions of times using something called the polymerase chain reaction.

And this is a really highly accurate and well recognized method for the detection of, of diseases across the board, not just STIs. And it's a really great way to make sure that. You are highly able to detect that DNA in that patient sample. And then the third part of our cartridge is really the unique and proprietary part of the detection technology that we have unique to us here at banks.

And it's an chemical detection method. This is a really great way to then identify and. Be able to interpret the fact that you've copied that chlamydia and gonorrhea DNA many, many times in the PCR reaction. And it's a really neat method that not only allows us to quickly detect the presence of CMY and gonorrhea, but it's, it's great because it's cost effective.

It also makes them the [00:16:00] instrument easy to use, and it means you don't have to carry out calibrations or do any maintenance on the machine. And that electrochemical method uses something called electronic probe. They bind to the many millions of copies of DNA that you've amplified in your PCR reaction.

And then we use a specific enzyme that really chops off this electronic label that we have present in our electrochemical detection chamber. And we use something called a screen printed electrode, and many people might be familiar with these. When you think about glucose testing for people that have diabetes, we, they they're commonly used things in, in sensors.

And we use use those to detect the presence of the DNA in combination with our electrochemical detection method. And once that's carried out, the instrument does some clever maths. We apply a number of algorithms and it's able to then translate that detection result into a, a qualitative result on the screen for the user to be able to see that tells 'em whether their patient has Cami or gonorrhea.[00:17:00] 

Kevin Folta: Now, there's one part of this. That's a little black box for me. And if you can talk about this, this would be great. You know, how does it. If it's chlamydia or gonorrhea or just some other pathogen or non bacterial DNA, just some DNA say from the person itself. 

Anna Dixon: Sure. That's a really great question. So in the polymerase chain reaction, This is a very, very highly specific reaction.

And we have things called primers inside that PCR chamber. And there's small lengths of DNA that are complimentary to other pieces of DNA that are present, for example, in chlamydia. And they will only stick. To that piece of DNA, if the chlamydia is present and for their, for the PCR reaction to then occur that those primers have to stick to that piece of DNA within the chlamydia genome.

And if that occurs again, we use a, a number of different enzymes and chemicals for the reaction to happen. And we are able to then create millions of [00:18:00] copies, just of a small segment of chlamydia. And it's. Specificity that allows us to ensure that we really are detecting chlamydia and not just some random other thing.

And then on the banks cart, we have another layer of specificity where the electronic probes that I was just talking about, they again, are specific to the DNA that we've just amplified in the PCR chamber. So it's really important for it to be highly specific of course, because what you don't want to do is give someone a false positive result, which is a result that could occur.

If, for example, someone didn't have chlamydia, but you thought they did. So it's very, very important with any diagnostic test that you have a high level of not only sensitivity where you are detecting positive samples, but also specificity, where you are very highly accurately, making sure that you give negative people the correct result as well.

Kevin Folta: That is really amazing that this can all be done on a microfluidic chip because, you know, 30 minutes, that's how much time it takes me to set up, to do a DNA [00:19:00] prep, let alone the PCR and detection. And so it really is amazing to me. So this is really the primers that are giving the specificity for the target as it does in PCR, but some sort of a detectable beacon on the primer that when incorporated is the thing that gives.

Detection that can be differentially sensed between chlamydia or gonorrhea or, you know, just some other DNA sequence. And then the primers that are left over probably disappear from the chip during detection. So you're actually only seeing bonafide incorporation in the PCR products is, do I have that right?

Anna Dixon: Yeah, that that's correct. The, the, the only slight difference is that the the beacon or the electronic label that we actually use in our detection is only applied to the sample in our detection chamber. It's not actually incorporated at the PCR stage. So at the PCR stage, we are just amplifying the DNA.

We then transfer that to our detection [00:20:00] chamber and it's within that chamber that we have our electrochemical. And that then can stick to our millions of copies of CMY that we've 

Kevin Folta: amplified. I see. So that makes a lot more sense. So this kind of test you mentioned it's sensitive, but it's also specific are what is the kind of rate of false positives and are these the kind of things that you get a positive?

Do you recommend that a patient follow up with a different test as well? Or is this the kind of thing where where they just would be, be better benefited by going right into an antibiotic regimen? 

Anna Dixon: Sure. So we've done some extensive clinical studies to, to ensure that our test is, is highly accurate so that it's got a high level of base sensitivity and specificity.

And this was part of the process that we went through to get our regulatory clearance. The test is five, 10 K and clear waived by FDA. And that clinical study we did was really to demonstrate that against central laboratory tests, the Ben's IO test was highly [00:21:00] accurate. And really what that entails is quite extensive.

You have to collect many, many patients. And in fact, those patients have to give four samples for example, and you test three of those samples on central laboratory reference tests that are wellness. Well known and well used. And then you compare your B eye results to those three central laboratory tests.

And when we do that and when we do all of the analysis, we can see that both for female and for male samples in both asymptomatic and symptomatic populations, we have very high levels of accuracy. So for example, when you are thinking about specificity both for chlamydia gonorrhea, Are more than 99% specific.

So that's really important because it means that people who are negative, we have a very, very high degree of confidence that they really are negative. Now, one thing to notice that no one test is perfect. So if you look at central laboratory tests that kind of pit themselves against each other, you will [00:22:00] find that there's not always commonality between the results.

And this is why we carry out extensive clinical studies and compare. For example, the test case in the BS IO against three different other laboratory tests so that we can get that really good confidence that the test result and the, the clinical trial results that we're getting are as accurate. And well, well populated as possible on a statistical 

Kevin Folta: basis.

Well, the real big advantage though, is that they're actually getting the test, right? I mean, that's the big differe. 

Anna Dixon: Absolutely. And certainly being able to get that test, but not only get that test and have that test result, interpreted, and then reacted to is really the important thing here. And it goes both ways as well.

So you know, very much. When you are thinking about diagnostics, you are thinking about, okay, we need to identify the positive people, which of course is really, really important, but it's also really important that you accurately identify the negative people quickly. And the reason why that's important [00:23:00] in sexually transmitted infections is because in many cases, if someone's sharing symptoms of an STI, And perhaps they've had risky behavior and they go to their clinician.

Sometimes a clinician will give them antibiotics, even if they haven't got the test result back yet. And so that's called empirical treatment where you will treat someone just in case you think that they've got it because at the time of seeing them in the clinic, they've got symptoms and they've told you that they've, they've had some risky behavior, perhaps that means that they may be at risk of having.

But of course, that can then lead to problems in terms of antibiotic resistance, where people are being, overtreated just in case they have this infection. So the big eye, of course, like I just said, is really important for identifying those positive patients because they can be treated on the spot, but also important because you can accurately identify the negative patients, meaning you are sparing them inappropriate antibiotics and, you know, everyone knows the, the problem.

That we are now encountering in terms of [00:24:00] antibiotic resistance across the world. You know, you may have heard of some cases of something called super gonorrhea, where people are now having cases of gonorrhea that are becoming untreatable. In fact, there's only one frontline treatment left now for gonorrhea.

So it's really important that we accurately treat people whether they're positive or don't treat them if they're. 

Kevin Folta: And, and maybe I can be a devil's advocate a little bit here in that if someone's going in for clinical assessment of what they feel is some sort of a, a, a problem, either reproductive or urinary tract, this type of thing.

And they're getting this kind of test. What about all of the other problems that they could have and everything from non-specific U arthritis through through trichomanes through things like, you know, Mo syphilis is another one that comes to mind the HPV. You know, all the other types of issues that can be associated with sexually transmitted disease.

Do you run a risk of those things? Not being detected because you have a really good test for these other two. 

Anna Dixon: Sure. [00:25:00] I think it probably falls into two different brackets. So many STIs are asymptomatic. So when, when you're thinking about asymptomatic peoples, you're thinking about people that are, are either having a screening test or they don't have symptoms, but they're thinking maybe they may have something because of an encounter that they've had.

So in that case, if you give them a Bankside chlamydia gonorrhea, Then, and it's negative. You can probably quite safely say, okay. You know, maybe they don't have anything else. If though, on the other hand, you've got a symptomatic patient and they've come to you. They've got symptoms. And your suspicion is that they've got chlamydia gonorrhea and you carry out like a, just said a rapid VIX IOCT and G test at committee of gonorrhea test.

And it's negative. You're still in a great position there where you can say, okay, they're negative for CMY of gonorrhea. What else might they have? Whereas in. The, the current system where you would have to wait for that test result, you may [00:26:00] then overtreat them, or you may say, oh, well, I really think they've got chlamydia, so I'm not gonna bother testing for other things.

So it, you can see in many different ways why it's really important to get that test result on 

Kevin Folta: the spot and, and do providers need special training to be able to administer these kinds of. 

Anna Dixon: so the Bens IO system is super, super easy to use. So what we gained back in March 2021 was something called clear waved status.

And that's a labeling that we were able to gain from FDA, which demonstrates how easy the test is to use. So when you gain clear waiver, when you go through the clear waiver process, you have to demonstrate many things to show that really the system is insensitive. To untrained people. It means that you can get the correct test result, even if you are not a trained laboratory person.

And really that says it all, how easy it is to use. And in fact, in our clinical study, in our original five, 10 K clinical study, 90 to [00:27:00] 5% of our patient samples were actually processed on our bank side by non-labor in a, a point of care setting. So we have people in, for example, student health centers. OB GYN clinics in STI clinics, but the tests were being run by office personnel by nurses by, by interns.

So it really demonstrates how easy the test is to use. It's just really those three simple steps of collecting the patient sample, adding that to the cartridge and putting it in the machine and pressing. 

Kevin Folta: Well, what's next on the horizon for this type of point of contact testing. Is it the kind of thing where you would see maybe expanded detection of other STIs or even, you know, other pathogens or potentially let's say even other conditions that may be present through the urinary reproductive systems?

Anna Dixon: Sure. So, you know, when it comes to the BS IO, really the world is our oyster when it comes to what we can put onto our, our machine. And that's really cuz it's, what's called a [00:28:00] platform technology. So if you think about it, we have a standalone instrument. It has some clever electronics and pneumatics inside that instrument.

And then we have a standalone cartridge and that standalone cartridge can be altered and changed in terms of the chemistry that we put onto that cartridge. And it means we can add new targets to that cartridge without having to change the whole system without how changing the user experience. And that's a really great way to develop menus and allow, for example, clinicians to have a whole menu of car.

A whole many of cartridges that we can use on that single instrument. And so for us here at B, we are really expanding into broader STI testing on women's health. So for example, it's looking things at like looking at things like Tramon VAs things like bacterial vaginosis, UTI infections, things that. You know, are really affecting people's lives in terms of either access to care [00:29:00] or the inability to get an accurate result quickly.

And, you know, for any people that have, you know, ever encountered having those infections frequently, these people are going back to their clinicians on multiple occasions before they get their problem solved. Because maybe they're given the wrong, wrong antibiotic. The first. So we are really targeting those things that affect people where infections can, can grow where infections can be transmitted to other people and where it's really having an impact on people's lives.

If they're unable to get that accurate test result quickly. Now 

Kevin Folta: that's the really exciting part for me, because I know what it's like to access healthcare as someone who has good insurance in the states. And, and it, for me, it's almost impossible to get an appointment anytime in the next three months, you know, so to try to do this in the place of outpatient clinics, you know, that this kind of thing is really very revolutionary in my mind.

And it seems like you would even want to move beyond. [00:30:00] Even just STIs. And are there other diseases that you could detect using this microfluidic technology from things like, you know, like nasal swabs or maybe oral swabs even, you know, think about COVID, you know, being anything that you could detect using the same sort of platform just by changing out the primers.

Anna Dixon: Absolutely. So we've done some really exciting work at banks where we've looked at what is the capability of the platform. And it's really very, very broad. So if you think about the three sections of the cartridge that I talked about earlier, We've we've had a look at each of those three sections of the cartridge and said, okay, how can they be altered and changed to develop really a broad menu?

So, you know, if you think about the first part of it, and you think about the sample types that go can go into the cartridge, I've talked about urine. I've talked about vaginal swabs, which are suitable for STI testing, but we've done a whole bunch of testing on things like blood on rectal swabs for injur swabs.

And it means we can also. Both [00:31:00] DNA and RNA. And the ability to detect infections from both DNA and RNA is huge because of course you start to really broaden that menu in terms of the content that you put into that cartridge and in the same way. We've done a lot of proof of principle work and feasibility work looking at, okay, what can we do inside that PCR chamber?

What can we do inside that detection chamber? And certainly in the amplification chamber we've done, what's called plexing and that's where you can add more than one set of primers to your PCR chamber. And you can begin to. Detect more and more pathogens at the same time. And it's another really great trait of our electrochemical detection, where we're able to do a high level of multiplexing just on this small cartridge.

And as an example, we have four detection chambers on our cartridge. We have a library of those electronic probes that I talked about. And so we were able to multiplex into the twenties. Now you may not need to do that across all panels. [00:32:00] In terms of all infectious diseases but the ability to be able to put lots of different targets and multiplex is, is pretty huge.

And, and in the same vein, we've also done some really exciting work on something called snip detection. And that's single nuclear tied polymorphism detection. And that's where you are able to pinpoint single changes in the DNA. Of your sample or the RNA of your sample. And that's a really powerful tool in terms of being able to really, again, broaden the menu and the content that you can put onto that cartridge.

And it's the kind of thing that allows you to detect different strains of, for example, gonorrhea Typically, you know, when we're talking about all of the infections around the world, there are multiple strengths or multiple types of gonorrhea that are being transmitted around. And some of them are resistant to certain antibiotics, but that antibiotic resistance is only caused by small changes in the DNA of the gonorrhea.

And this UHN detection that I just talked about [00:33:00] is a method for being able to differentiate between. Different types of gonorrhea. And that becomes a really, really powerful tool when you're talking about diagnostics, because in many cases, not only is it important to diagnose what the person has, but you need to know what type have they got a resistant strain or have they got a susceptible strain and therefore, what antibiotics should I give them?

So those are. A kind of small few examples of the kinds of things that we can put on this platform and enable us to, to detect things like Mr. S a and MSSA be able to detect things like group B strep and also move into things potentially like companion diagnostics, where you are able to test people and say, you need this level of a drug, or you need that level of a drug based on the DNA in that patient's.

Now, 

Kevin Folta: this is just magical to me. I mean, it seems so cool to be able to do this in so such a quick turnaround time. And the first thing my mind goes to is the developing world where maybe you don't [00:34:00] have the best access to immediate laboratory facilities or transportation or logistics to them, and be able to get back a faithful result in a reasonable amount of time.

And is this something. You know, maybe your company has designs on reaching those types of environments where people could really benefit from rapid detection of, of specific diseases. 

Anna Dixon: Absolutely. We would love to be part of, you know, helping the developing world, the developing countries that. In the same way as developed countries are yearning for tests like this and perhaps even more so where, you know, rural clinics are unable to process either large amounts of samples or where, you know, the distance to the laboratories that is.

Testing them is, you know, a long geographical distance and perhaps even takes longer than the kind of one to two weeks that that is usual in both, both Europe and the us. And so our instrument has the potential, for [00:35:00] example, to have a battery operated pack or, or be generated into. For the power to be generated using solar power, for example.

So the, the, the instrument being so easy to use and, and compatible with any situation is, would be a great solution for the developing worlds. And I think it would be something that we would love to be part of. 

Kevin Folta: Well, all of this is really great that you can come up with a reliable result very quickly, but how does the data that's generated dovetail with medical records and all the electronic ways of currently taking care of the confidentiality of the data and at the same time, providing it into a network very quickly.

Anna Dixon: Sure. So data is really important to us and we recognize that really early on in the design of the instrument that, okay, it's great to get a good result, but what do you do with the information there? So we have the compatibility with our instrument currently to seamlessly integrate with electronic medical records.

We've done [00:36:00] some of those integrations, which is really great. And what that means is once a test has been result once that test has been run, it can be directly transferred into the medical records of that clinic. And this is really important when it comes to things like CMY and gonorrhea as diseases that need to be notified to the relevant public health bodies.

Because it means those clinicians have. Got that data right at their fingertips. We're also able to export results to a USB stick or print results on a printer, but the ability to transmit those results directly to a server is really what we are looking at next. And so when we develop our system further, we will have both wifi and cloud connectivity ability, which will just be great.

And it will mean that we'll be able to have the standalone instrument and be able to transmit that data right over 20. 

Kevin Folta: Well, this is all really fascinating technology. If someone wanted to learn more about bank's health, where would they look on social media or maybe on the. Sure. 

Anna Dixon: So we have a really great website.

So that's [00:37:00] www.meinshealth.com. And we're also present on Twitter, on Facebook and on LinkedIn, but the, the website is a really great source of information, not just only on our technology, but also on STIs because, you know, we really believe that education is a part of this. So there's a ton of information on there just about STIs as.

Kevin Folta: Well Dr. Anna Dixon. Thank you very much for your time today. This is really exciting from a really kinda geeky technology side and thinking about microfluidics and experiments happening at in the, on the microliter or nanoliter scale. But at the same time, solving a bigger problem in the presence and emergence of what we thought were old diseases.

So thank you very much for joining. Great. Thank you very much. And thank you again for listening to another episode of collaboratives talking biotech podcast. This is another great example of modern detection where being able to identify a problem early and accurately results in improved healthcare and improved costs.

[00:38:00] And this is the kind of thing we need to see a whole lot more of going forward. So thank you very much for listening to the talking biotech podcast. And we'll talk to you again next week.