Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SWINOSTICS (Swine diseases field diagnostics toolbox)

Teaser

In response to increasing human population, urbanization rates and income growth rate, the demand for livestock products during the last 40 years has dramatically increased. Confined livestock production systems in industrialized countries are the source of much of the world\'s...

Summary

In response to increasing human population, urbanization rates and income growth rate, the demand for livestock products during the last 40 years has dramatically increased. Confined livestock production systems in industrialized countries are the source of much of the world\'s poultry and pig meat production. This increased population density in modern animal production systems has made them vulnerable to various transboundary infectious agents & diseases. During the last 4 decades in the developed world, a reduction in the direct burden of livestock diseases has been observed, as a result of more effective drugs and vaccines and improvements in diagnostic technologies and veterinary services. However, the total impact may actually be increasing, because in a globalized and highly interconnected world, the effects of diseases extend far beyond animal sickness and mortality. Therefore, early diagnosis and establishment of reliable countermeasures to infectious disease outbreaks is essential.
To date, the time between initial disease outbreak, sample transportation and laboratory confirmation of the etiologic infectious agent can be up to several weeks or months. Thus, the need for the development of mobile diagnostic units has been recognized. Traditionally, virus detection in the laboratory relies on cell culture or detection of circulatory antibodies. The earlier can be extremely time consuming, while the later although fast and simple and often informative, neither coincides with the timing of infection nor it correlates with clinical disease. Thus, rapid diagnostics systems are designed to detect the nucleic acid or protein of the infectious agent. The vast majority of these systems rely on nucleic acid extraction & purification, and PCR-based amplification & detection. Nevertheless, methods enabling rapid & simple nucleic acid extraction under resource-limited settings are still scarce. In addition, PCR amplification methods are so sensitive that often produce false positives. Detection of microbial antigen has long been viewed as more reliable than detection of nucleic acid. However, development of such diagnostic technology had been hindered by lack of sensitivity, increased cost and lack of portability. In recent years, silicon based Photonic Integrated Circuits (PIC) have been demonstrated as a powerful platform for biosensing systems. In combination with integrated antibodies on the device, they can provide portable multiplex detection of proteins with sensitivity and specificity previously not realized.
SWINOSTICS addresses these challenges & needs, by developing a novel field diagnostic device, based on advanced, proven, bio-sensing technologies to tackle emerging & endemic viruses causing epidemics in swine farms in Europe. The device will allow immediate threat assessment at the farm level, with the analytical quality of commercial laboratories. The device will be developed for a panel of diseases, namely: African swine fever, Porcine Parvovirus, Porcine reproductive & respiratory syndrome, Porcine Circovirus, Swine Influenza A, Classical Swine Fever. The device will be portable and will provide results in few minutes for 4-5 samples simultaneously, making it highly suitable for use in the field. The modular construction of the device would allow future upgrades to increase capacity if so desired. A small series production of the device will be performed, in order to validate the approach. Validation will be done first with reference samples and then with field samples from four EU countries (Greece, Poland, Italy and Hungary).

Work performed

One of the first activities has been to define user requirements for the SWINOSTICS device. Conclusions were then drafted, which were used for preparing the system specifications and design. The same conclusions are also important for the SWINOSTICS business plan preparation. In parallel, the description of the demonstration locations and validation procedures was prepared. The above were delivered as report D2.1.
As a next step, the requirements for the major components of the SWINOSTICS device were prepared. Based on the requirements, a conceptual design of the device modules was prepared.
In this period, a lot of effort was also dedicated to the finalization of the analysis protocol. This was used for the first design of the PIC and the overall automated device operation. Sample collection and preparation steps were also described. The first batch of PICs was also delivered towards the end of the period and will be used for mid-project testing.
The first version of all device hardware modules was also prepared. This includes all components necessary to integrate a first, operational prototype that wil be used to evaluate the interconnection between modules and possible bugs & incompatibilities. Such tests will take place in the next period. A first user interface (App) has also been prepared.
In terms of dissemination activities, the project website has been setup and the first versions of the dissemination & communication plan were prepared. A press release was issued, while social media accounts were prepared and are regularly used. Two version of a leaflet and newsletter were also prepared and distributed. Two peer reviewed publications were submitted, while presentations in events also took place.
Regarding management and administrative activities, the project’s quality assurance plan, as well as the Data management plan, describing the way data generated within the project will be shared, were prepared in this period.

Final results

The SWINOSTICS innovation is at various levels. Regarding project beyond the state of the art: a) The SWINOSTICS device will be the only field-use device capable of the detection of 6 important swine viruses of particular interest for the European (and global) economy, b) The device will use oral fluids as a sample for the analysis. This simplifies sample collection & minimizes the time needed for the test, allowing also the collection of wild boar samples through adequate lures. The device will also be compatible with the use of other types of samples, such as faeces, blood or nasal swabs, c) The sample analysis will require few minutes. Additionally, 4-5 PIC sensors, working in parallel, will be available within the device, in order to process up to 5 samples simultaneously, d) The PIC sensors that will be used in the device do not require the use of a fluorescent label for the detection (label-free detection), e) The device will integrate a biosensor regeneration mechanism, in order to make each PIC reusable for at least up to 100 times.
The main project results include: a) the SWINOSTICS device, supporting App and cloud software, b) the validation results, after testing the device both with laboratory samples as well as with real samples from the field. SWINOSTICS is developing a mobile diagnostic device and complete system, providing reliable and simple diagnostic testing directly on site, thus enabling rapid local decision making which is crucial to prevent further spreading of the disease. This is crucial both for animal & food safety, but also for human health in general. It also has a direct positive, economic impact on swine farms & the agri-food sector in general. It should be noted that the approach is modular and could be could be used for the monitoring of other diseases in the near future (through appropriate adaptation of the biosensors).

Website & more info

More info: http://www.swinostics.eu.