Mobile DNA test for HIV ‘could be useful in poorer settings’

HIV patients in resource-poor settings could benefit from the creation of a simple and highly accurate new test to detect signs of HIV.

The nucleic acid-based test, developed by Rice University, can be performed at the site of care both as a diagnostic tool and to monitor the progress of the disease in patients, without the need for the kind of lab equipment and technical expertise generally available only in clinics.

Though the use of the recombinase polymerase amplification method, users will be able to quickly amplify genetic markers found in blood to levels where they can be easily counted. A specific sequence in HIV DNA can then be targeted and tagged with fluorescent probes, to be quantified by a portable machine.

Software analysis of the fluorescing DNA allows clinicians to accurately determine whether the virus is present in a patient's blood and/or how much is there.

Co-lead author Zachary Crannell, a graduate student at the Rice 360 Institute for Global Health Technologies, said: "It’s important for clinicians to be able to quantitatively monitor patients' viral loads in order to ensure the disease is responding to therapy."

At the end of 2012, there were an estimated 98,400 people in the UK living with HIV, with more than one-fifth not knowing they were infected.