Project Summary
According to UNAIDS, there were 36.9 million people around the world living with HIV and
more than 1.8 million new infections that were diagnosed in 2017. The epidemic is not under
control, and a significant growth of youth in developing countries will only compound the problem.
Truvada®, a pill composed of tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) and emtricitabine (FTC), is the
only drug approved for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for men and wormen during high HIV
risk activities. Adherence to the one pill per day regimen is crucial for significantly reducing
potential HIV risk by sexual transmission. Therefore, monitoring drug levels in real time in the
clinic would provide necessary interventions to support adherence, particularly during behavior or
lifestyle changes. While pharmacokinetic approaches exist for measuring Truvada’s active drug
metabolite, tenofovir (TFV), there is still no point-of-care test to measure TFV in HIV prevention
or treatment regimens. Our project is aimed at filling this gap by developing and validating a novel
aptamer-based biosensor, or aptasensor, capable of detecting tenofovir in various biological
fluids, at the point-of-care/clinic, with a simple-to-use procedure, which will empower health care
providers to provide real-time feedback with each prescription renewal. Aptamers are DNA or
RNA-based ligands capable of binding specifically to small molecules. Because of their small size,
stability, high specificity, and reproducibility, aptamers can be applied to biosensor platforms to
create a compact and sensitive assay well-suited for point-of-care tests. Combining a technology
generated by Base Pair and CONRAD’s expertise in the area of HIV prevention, we propose to
develop and clinically validate an aptasensor for measuring TFV. In Specific Aim 1, the TFV-
specific aptamer combined with a biosensor platform will be optimized and tested in TFV-spiked
simulant and clinical samples. We will validate the apatasensor in a pilot clinical trial in women
taking Truvada at high and low adherence treatment regimens in Specific Aim 2. This project will
provide proof-of-concept for a TFV aptasensor that can be further validated as a point-of-care test
for therapeutic drug and adherence monitoring. Ultimately, real-time monitoring of adherence will
lead to better counselling, resulting in higher effectiveness, and greatly contribute to the global
initiative to reduce new HIV infections to fewer than 500,000 by 2020.
