News

May 2023

Prompt diagnosis of early pertussis (Whooping cough) is critical for minimizing the extent and economic burden of pertussis outbreaks. Specifically, timely contact tracing and deployment of prophylactic antibiotics to high-risk close contacts depends on the swift diagnosis of pertussis cases. Rapid diagnosis of pertussis also facilitates antibiotic (more…)

September 2022

Coccidioidomycosis is a serious form of fungal pneumonia that predominantly affects people who visit or live in the southwest United States and northern Mexico. Within the endemic zone, it can be extremely common. Current diagnostics for coccidioidomycosis include fungal culture, microscopy, and serology (detection of patient antibodies). (more…)

January 2020

The design of rapid assays, such as lateral flow immunoassays (LFI), rely heavily on antibodies for antigen detection. While the antibodies used in these assays are highly specific to the antigen of interest, the generation of reagents necessitates the use of animals and is time intensive. A novel rapid assay that replaces antibodies with (more…)

August 2019

Tinea capitis (scalp ringworm) is a serious fungal infection that affects 3-8% of children in the United States. Children from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds, sub-Saharan African descent, or other groups that have been traditionally disadvantaged within the health care system are most at risk of infection. (more…)

April 2019

Mucormycosis is a devastating invasive fungal infection that has a 47% or greater mortality rate. It predominantly affects immunocompromised individuals, including bone marrow or solid organ transplant recipients, patients with hematological malignancies undergoing chemotherapy, and patients with diabetes mellitus. (more…)

January 2017

Huanglongbing (HLB) or citrus greening is a destructive disease of citrus worldwide and is associated with infection by the vector-borne bacterium Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus (Ca. Liberibacter or CLas). HLB is now widespread in regions of Florida, California, Texas, Georgia, and Puerto Rico, resulting in significant financial implications. Immediate removal of the diseased tree followed by strict quarantine measures appear to be successful in the mitigation of the spread of HLB.

Common testing protocols, using qPCR, are cost prohibitive and routinely take weeks to months after sample collection for results to be made available, limiting on-site decision making. Pilot funding awarded to DxDiscovery and the University of Nevada, Reno by the California Citrus Board allowed for exploration into monoclonal antibody production against a CLas specific target, an initial step in the development of antigen-based detection assays.

June 2016

Pertussis (whooping cough) is rapidly re-emerging as a serious public health threat in the United States. Current diagnostics (PCR and culture) are slow, expensive and require a high level of user expertise. The goal of this project is to resolve a critical public health need for improved pertussis diagnostics by developing a point-of-care immunoassay that can diagnose early-stage pertussis in minutes, at very low cost, and without the need for specialized equipment or user expertise. (more…)

June 2015

DxDiscovery is continuing efforts to develop medical countermeasures against melioidosis and glanders. These diseases are caused by Burkholderia pseudomallei and Burkholderia mallei, respectively. B. mallei infections are rare, however, B. pseudoamallei infections are a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in southeast Asia.

August 2014

National Institutes of Health , National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease award number R43AI109891 was awarded to Principal Scientist Amanda Burnham-Marusich and Thomas Kozel for development of a point of care immunoassay for early diagnosis of pertussis on June, 1st 2014.

June 2014

Pertussis (whooping cough) is a serious and potentially life-threatening respiratory disease caused by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis. Worldwide, 18.4 million people become ill with pertussis each year, and 254,000 of these patients die. Despite high vaccine coverage in the United States, there were still over 48,000 pertussis cases reported (more…)

February 2014

DxDiscovery was featured in the Winter 2014 edition of Silver and Blue Magazine.

February 2014

DxDiscovery announced as one of seven finalists in Sontag competition.

August 2013

Biotech start-up DxDiscovery moves to Applied Research Facility.

August 2013

New Nevada biotechnology company DxDiscovery was featured on MyNews 4.

August 2013

DxDiscovery was featured in an article by the Reno Gazette Journal.

August 2013

Biotech start-up launched by School of Medicine researchers.