Anvil Diagnostics develops smart reagents and algorithms to enhance digital PCR for detecting invasive infections. The company uses machine learning to design DNA sensors that identify pathogen gene signatures from complex samples. This approach enables fast, comprehensive pathogen quantification suitable for routine use in hospital settings.
Funding
Funding not disclosed
Founders
Product
Problem
Current blood culture diagnostics for severe infections in hospitalized patients are slow, often ineffective, and can take days to produce results. This delay forces clinicians to make treatment decisions with limited information about the causative pathogens.
Solution
Anvil Diagnostics is developing liquid biopsy test kits that leverage digital PCR to rapidly detect and quantify a wide range of pathogens directly from blood samples. Their approach enhances existing digital PCR hardware with proprietary DNA "keyword" sensors and statistical algorithms, enabling comprehensive pathogen detection. The test kits distinguish hundreds of pathogen genes based on combinations of keywords and analyze data from parallel reactions to determine the sample content. This enables clinicians to select targeted therapies, monitor patient progress, and decentralize high-performance PCR-based testing to community hospitals.
Target Audience
The primary target audience includes clinicians and hospital labs that require rapid and comprehensive pathogen identification for critically ill patients.
Features
- Comprehensive pathogen coverage, detecting hundreds of pathogens rather than a limited set.
- High sensitivity and specificity, distinguishing true infections from trace background DNA.
- Streamlined and cost-effective integration into busy hospital labs.
- DNA "keyword" sensors that distinguish 100's of pathogen genes based on their combinations of keywords.
- Statistical algorithms that analyze 100,000 datapoints from parallel reactions to determine the sample content.
- Culture-free, comprehensive, and quantitative liquid biopsies.