| Abstract | Acute febrile illnesses account for 40% of child deaths in sub-Saharan Africa, and an unknown level of morbidity and mortality in adults. Growing awareness of the animal origins of many human diseases (zoonoses) has highlighted their importance as causes of fever. However, diagnosis of zoonoses is not widely pursued in low resource settings. This contributes to low awareness of zoonoses which hinders early detection and effective clinical management of fever. The LSTM Diagnostics group is part of an NIHR Global Health Research Group, with collaborators from the UK, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, including experts in paediatrics, epidemiology, microbiology, social science, diagnostics development, infectious diseases and zoonoses/arboviral research. The overall aim of this consortia is to improve the diagnosis and management of zoonotic causes of fever in children in sub-Saharan Africa. This PhD studentship will focus on the design and development of new diagnostic methods for detecting key zoonotic causes of fever, including brucellosis, Q fever, and dengue. Tests will be developed using a range of cutting-edge diagnostic technologies that are being utilised at LSTM, including isothermal molecular methods such as LAMP and CRISPR/Cas, and monoclonal antibody labelled graphene biosensors. Throughout this process the student will have the opportunity to collaborate with several industrial partners within the diagnostic sector, and work with various prototype platforms. Tests will be developed at LSTM, validated using cultured pathogens and existing sample banks with the BLS3 laboratories (full BSL3 training will be given), and finally evaluated at one or more of our partner sites in Eastern Africa using clinical samples. This exciting project, within the Department of Tropical Disease Biology has the potential to deliver new diagnostics for these priority One-Health pathogens, and provide tangible translational outputs. The supervisory team includes, laboratory, clinical and commercial experience ensuring all aspects of the project are well covered. |
| Where does this project lie in the translational pathway? | T1 - Basic Research |
| Expected Outputs | This project will generate high quality publications in the field of zoonoses diagnostics, specifically on the design and evaluation of the diagnostic tests. This highly translational work will also aim to progress tests through the development pipeline to commercialisation, via the generation of IP. Previous and current PhD students in the group have all published one or several high-quality first-author papers, and recent work from the team has resulted in high-impact publications in journals including Nature Communications, Lancet Infectious Diseases and Microbial Genomics. This project aims to generate a sizeable impact on how fever is diagnosed in Eastern Africa, and the existing network of collaborators within the Global Health Research Group will allow for new tests to be rapidly evaluated within this setting to generate the data needed to support test implementation and policy change. We will encourage the student to use results obtained in this project as the foundation for early career fellowship applications from the Wellcome Trust and MRC and will assist with compiling these. |
| Training Opportunities | The student will receive training on a wide variety of laboratory techniques at LSTM, including mammalian cell culture, Biosafety level 3 laboratory work, qPCR/LAMP, DNA sequencing, and diagnostic test development. Via working with our industrial partners the student will gain exposure to the commercialisation of research, and gain key skills in research translation. Experience of working in LMIC laboratory settings will also be gained via our collaborations within Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, where the test evaluation will take place. We will support the student in identifying and applying for external funding opportunities e.g. Bioinformatics courses |
| Skills Required | All necessary training will be provided during the project |
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Key Publications associated with this project |
doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-30754-1 |
| doi: 10.1186/s13756-023-01216-0 | |
| doi: 10.1093/jac/dky563 | |
| doi: 10.4269/ajtmh.23-0476 | |
| doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0009607 |