CHAMPION

CHAMPION aims to develop a rapid, point-of-need (PON) diagnostic kit for the detection of Noroviruses (NoV), one of the leading causes of foodborne infectious disease outbreaks. The main motivations to perform this work is to provide an easy-to-use, economically convenient and standardized NoV diagnostic kit with high specificity and sensitivity Currently, the most effective protocol is the real time PCR (RT-PCR) for the detection of NoV from food matrices. However, RT-PCR assays are designed for use in well-equipped laboratories with sophisticated laboratory infrastructure and highly trained technicians, and are unsuitable for use in limited infrastructure of or in the field. The CHAMPION aims to facilitates and development of, rapid and non-enzymatic nucleic acid amplification system employing catalytic hairpin assembly (CHA) reaction coupled with a paper strip that can detect NoV from food matrices. Thus, the CHAMPION incorporates the pre-concentration, CHA signal amplification, specific detection and signal visualization in a single miniaturized device. Thus, it can be anticipated that the long-term outcomes of the proposed work will deliver a novel, accurate, rapid and reliable diagnostic assay for the detection of NoV.