The Department of Defense this week announced the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. is being awarded a $15,150,012 modification to an existing cooperative agreement for the Autonomous Diagnostics to Enable Prevention and Therapeutics: Diagnostics on Demand (ADEPT: DxOD) program.
Caltech’s digital slipchip platform for use in limited resource settings will be designed to provide analytic parity with the equipment typically used in reference laboratories, yet with a user experience and robustness that would permit clinical laboratory improvement amendments (CLIA)-waived status.
To allow for a high level of medical care, the device will be readable with a cell phone, so results can be transmitted to reference laboratories or remote physicians. Work will be performed in Pasadena, Calif., (99 percent) and Alachua, Fla., (1 percent). The work is expected to be completed by August 2014.
The Diagnostics on Demand in Limited Resource Settings (DxOD – LRS) effort is overseen by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The program aims to significantly advance point-of-need diagnostics deployable with military personnel in rugged environments or settings without conventional resources. An additional goal of the program is to develop diagnostic devices that can be operated by unskilled users in these settings.
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