The NYU Abu Dhabi team began this journey to build a point-of-care contact device to detect the Chytrid Fungus in the field back in 2020 when Dr. Penner, a wildlife conservationist, reached out to bring awareness to the disease that has been devastating amphibian populations worldwide and in turn contributing to biodiversity decline. A big part of understanding how to optimize our product was to contact experts in the field for advice.
In the first meeting with Dr. Penner, we wanted to understand what the priorities of field researchers and monitors are when it comes to developing a device catered to increasing the efficiency of detection of amphibians who are affected by the Chytrid fungus. This meeting was extremely valuable because as people who do not possess a holistic understanding of the situation, we found a new perspective on what to implement in our device for optimal use.
In our meeting, we asked Dr. Penner how he would rank the importance of certain characteristics of the device including time, durability, sensitivity, simplicity, and accuracy to acknowledge what our priorities should be. This helped shape the device and divert our attention to the factors that matter the most
Additionally, we got a better idea of the groups of people who will actually be using our product. Not only would field researchers benefit from our device but those who are in charge of monitoring amphibian populations for the fungus, institutions like zoos and research universities, and people who facilitate the exportation of the amphibians would also stand to gain from a product like ours.
With the establishment of our business team, we made every effort to make sure everybody understood every aspect of the project, including the science behind it. While this was useful, we believed that setting up an additional meeting with Dr. Penner would be especially valuable so the business team could get a better grasp on the motivations behind the project and potential organizations to which they could reach out.
Our conversation with Dr. Penner on October 6th provided the business team with the necessary framework and data sources to start estimating the market size of chytrid testing. Together with Dr. Penner we agreed that there are three main customer groups in the chytrid market (conservation groups, animal traders, research institutions). We then went step by step through these customer groups and identified metrics and data sources that we could use to get an idea for the demand of our product. For conservation groups we were able to identify the main NGOs in Germany (NABU, BUND, LBV) and accumulate data on how many monitored frog fences there are. For wildlife we found a databank (CITES) that recorded all international wildlife trade. However, regarding research institutions we agreed that more individual research had to be done. Moreover, we discussed the overall impact of the chytrid fungus on biological ecosystems.
From the meetings, we understood that the turnover time was the most important factor we had to optimize as the researchers often test hundreds of frogs on a given day. We however had to cut short on this time without compromising the sensitivity or accuracy of the device. We did so using the following methods:
Finally, we plan on making an outer robust shell once we integrate the three modules together as it will be used in the field. Upon the request of Dr. Penner we also decided to have glow in dark tape around the shell as a lot of the sample collection process is done during the night.
Our conversation with Dr. Mike Hudson and Dr. Chris Durrant was very fruitful. From the business side the meeting was helpful for two reasons. Firstly, we were able to validate the need for our device. Dr. Hudson and Dr. Durrant repeatedly mentioned how impressed they were with our technology and how it would significantly improve their field work experience. Secondly, they provided us with good data sources and estimates regarding the current testing methods and the size of the testing market. Dr. Hudson and Dr. Durrant’s estimates, and data sources were crucial in creating a competition comparison table. They provided us with the current lab costs that are needed to conduct the tests. They also provided us with vital information for the market sizing. We got estimates on how much their respective universities spend on chytrid testing and how many similar institutes there are.
Dr. Durrant and Dr. Hudson gave us valuable insight into the aspects of field testing that needs to be improved or considered when creating such a device. From initial testing of our device, extraction of DNA through the microfluidic chip took around 30 minutes, while the concentrator detected that extracted DNA in around 3 minutes. Thus, they expressed their concerns on the pros and cons of having a field testing device versus simply mass swabbing a group of animals and taking it back to the lab for processing, particularly if the lab is nearby. Considering the weather conditions may not always be the best, it is important to think about what those that collect samples prefer. However, with the compactness of the chips, together we figured that it would be possible for certain models of Chytritect to have multiple lanes of chips so that tests could be run in parallel. Additionally, Dr. Durrant suggested two ways in which we could cut extraction times completely by using Potassium Hydroxide or a Prepman kit to lyse the cell so that our concentrator chip can detect it. This would make our device's detection time less than 5 minutes, and with lower costs, light and durable packaging with multiple detection lanes, they expressed high interest in our innovative product.
