HIV Drug Resistance Testing Technology has Critical Global Implications
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Verizon is now accepting ideas for the 2015 Powerful Answers Award
Expanding its ongoing commitment to innovation and social responsibility, we are currently accepting submissions for the chance to win up to $1,000,000 in prize money. Enter here by June 18th, 2015: verizon.com/powerfulanswers/award/.
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Aldatu Biosciences, a startup based in Boston, Mass., is changing infectious disease treatment paradigms. Aldatu’s diagnostic solutions enable physicians the flexibility to prescribe alternative medications to patients who show resistance to certain HIV treatments.
Using their platform technology called Pan Degenerate Amplification and Adaptation – PANDAA™, the company is able to adapt an already low-cost and sensitive diagnostic technique to detect HIV drug resistance through genotyping.
Recently, Aldatu Biosciences was awarded a $250,000 prize from the Verizon Powerful Answers Award, a competition for innovators across the globe to present answers and solutions to some of our world’s greatest challenges. David Raiser, CEO and co-founder, and Iain MacLeod, CSO and co-founder of Aldatu, learned about the Verizon Powerful Answers Award through their involvement in the Harvard Innovation Lab. According to them, the recognition from Verizon shows the company’s commitment to funding ideas that can effect real change.
The grant will allow Raiser, MacLeod and their team to execute on Aldatu’s vision of changing the HIV management paradigm and make a tangible impact. As a result of the funding, MacLeod will travel to Zimbabwe in March to talk about the technology and familiarize end users with how the diagnostic testing works.
“As first-time entrepreneurs, the Powerful Answers Award gave us the opportunity to get external validation that we would be able to apply this scientific innovation to something that can be commercialized and actually reach patients,” said Raiser. “This award was very important to us personally and gave us confidence that the way we were going about implementing our plan made the most business sense and that we are headed in the right direction.”
