PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Preventative or curable major diseases such as cancer, heart disease, and diabetes can be successfully treated if detected early in their development via routine physician visits and preventative screening. However, many populations of the world are medically underserved due to resource limitations, geographical location and socio-economic barriers. The overall goal of this project is to develop a portable, inexpensive and easy-to- use point-of-care (POC) platform that can be deployed to prescreen such communities for many of the common, clinically significant diseases in these underserved communities. For development of our initial proof of concept, our integrative team will closely collaborate with partnering physicians in Mongolia on a platform for early diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and Hepatitis B and C, which are closely linked to HCC, both of which have a high incidence in this country and in the surrounding region. We propose the development of a portable, easy-to-use, low-cost immunosorbent assay for blood-borne biomarkers of these diseases using a quantitative vertical flow assay (q-VFA) with Raman readout. This platform, which is based on an extensive body of work at the University of Utah, provides a short sample-to- result turn-around-time and can be administered, for example, by a local health care worker or community leader. If positive, referral for further diagnostic evaluation is needed, and the patient can be directed to their nearest medical facility.

PROJECT NARRATIVE/RELEVANCE TO PUBLIC HEALTH Early detection of hepatic cancer is imperative to successful treatment outcomes. However, routine physician visits and preventative screening is not commonplace to global healthcare. Many communities have limited access to healthcare due to geographical location, underfunded health plans, and a lack of outreach programs, resulting in a high mortality rate due to the unnecessary advancement of highly treatable cancers. Our proposal seeks to reach these populations through the development of a portable, easy-to-use, point-of-care platform for prognostic screening of patients for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and for Hepatitis B (HBV) and Hepatitis C (HCV), both of which have been closely linked to cancer of the liver.