Team members: Jonathan Hsu, Axel Masquelin, Ryan Preston, Andrew Witten

In 2015, the World Health Organization estimated that there were over 2 million cholera cases worldwide. After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, a cholera epidemic spread throughout the nation, infecting over 200,000 people within six months. Cholera still devastates the population today. Vibrio cholerae (V. cholerae) is a water- and foodborne pathogen which causes diarrhea, vomiting, and dehydration in patients, and, if left untreated, ultimately leads to death. Rapid detection of V. cholerae in drinking water sources prevents such outbreaks. Currently, rapid diagnostic tests that perform field assays do not exist for cholera testing in water samples. This is due to the low environmental concentration of V. cholerae present in water (as few as 10 cells/mL). There is a global need for a device to detect V. cholerae in drinking water sources at these low concentrations that is accurate, portable, cost effective, and with a 95% sensitivity and specificity. To respond to this need, we propose a portable smartphone attachment and application within a kit that detects the presence of V. cholerae. Using the biological assay technique known as loop mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), V. cholerae DNA from an environmental water sample can be amplified and measured quantitatively using our smartphone application. Our solution addresses the design criteria for a rapid field assay capable of working at low concentrations (10 cells/mL) in less than 20 minutes and has a sensitivity and specificity higher than 95%.

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