With a new $765,120 grant, Global Health professor Paul Drain will lead a study to develop an antigen-based COVID-19 test – as well as evaluate PCR-based tests and immunological assays – to be used at the point of care. This grant, sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is titled “Developing and Evaluating Point-of-Care Antigen and Immunoassays for COVID-19 and Cytokine Release Syndrome among people being screened for SARS-CoV-2 infection in Seattle”.

Paul Drain—an Associate Professor in the Department of Global Health, Medicine and Epidemiology at the University of Washington—and his research team have received a new grant from the CoMotion Innovation Gap Fund, a program intended to help bridge the gap between academic research grants and the level of development needed to obtain investment. Drain’s project is titled “Rapid test for measuring adherence to antiretroviral therapy and pre-exposure prophylaxis”.  

Lung cancer is far and away the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. In the U.S. alone, a projected 142,000 people will die of the disease this year.

A new grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will allow Paul Drain, a professor in the UW Department of Global Health, to conduct clinical evaluation studies of point-of-care tuberculosis (TB) diagnostic tests. These rapid tests deliver quick results to patients and clinicians in hospital and community clinics. By accelerating the initiation of TB treatment, patients may have better outcomes and will be less likely to transmit TB to others. TB has become the leading infectious cause of mortality in the world, due partly to poorly performing diagnostic test practices.