Short Title:
MinION
Responsible HRP Element:
Human Health Countermeasures
|
Collaborating Org(s):
|
| Exploration Medical Capability (ExMC) Element |
|
Funding Status:
Active - Currently funded and in progress
|
Procurement Mechanism(s):
|
|
Aims:
1. Develop flight compatible sample processing protocols using technology already onboard ISS (or compatible with Gateway) to enable MinION to assay virus DNA in saliva samples.
2. Validate the developed technology against the terrestrial standard assay. The standard is the qPCR assay which has been used for several ISS investigations. This will be accomplished for each relevant virus, via parallel analysis of saliva samples spiked with increasing concentrations of virus DNA
3. Conducts a population survey of at least 20 'normal' subjects. Since shedding of latent herpesviruses is minimal in healthy control subjects, parallel testing may also be performed for higher incidence subjects or patients, as samples are available via our existing suite of ground and flight investigations. This should be permissible as for each parent study, the determination of virus DNA was contained in the original approved proposal.
Category:
Technology or Tool
Subcategory:
Systems Solutions, Prototype Hardware or Software
Description:
This is an assay development activity necessary to enable planned countermeasures studies in Antartica and onboard ISS. It is not hypothesis based research, However a hypothesis equivalent would state that we believe adaptation of existing ISS-compatible sample processing technology can be successfully be adapted to extract and amplify DNA from saliva, such that the MinION could detect, identify and quantify the presence of virus DNA.
The developed method and hardware would then be readily available for use during ground and ISS countermeasures studies.
Internal Customers:
None
External Customers:
Gateway Program
HRP, HHC,
International Space Station (ISS)
Is a Customer-Supplier Agreement (CSA) Required?
No