Monday, February 16, 2026 2/16/2026

Multicolor Photoacoustic Malaria Detector

Award Number: R41AI138690
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY & INFECTIOUS DISEASES
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 04/01/2018
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 03/31/2021

Group Awards By:

View Award Description

Multicolor Photoacoustic Malaria Detector - Summary Malaria continues to be a global health priority, with almost half of the world’s population (3.2 billion) at risk and around 500,000 deaths each year. Overtreatment is caused by lack of diagnosis and contributes to resistance, a huge threat as illustrated by artemisinin resistance in Southeast Asia. Little progress has been made in the novel methods to diagnose malaria, let alone in reliably identifying asymptomatically infected individuals, which is of utmost importance for the current elimination agenda. Most current malaria tests have poor sensitivity at low levels of parasitemia: in routine practice it is usually well above 0.001% or ≥ 50 parasites/µL. That high a level is insufficient to detect the large reservoir of asymptomatic individuals. The goal of this proposal is to develop an innovative multicolor malaria detector using malaria-specific in vivo photoacoustic (PA) flow cytometry (PAFC) platform for the early, noninvasive (needle-free, no blood draw and thus no contamination concern), label-free (no injection of any reagent into the blood), rapid (a few seconds), and safe (no pain or skin damage) diagnosis of malaria. This technology is based on PA detection of the malaria crystal (hemozoin) within circulating infected red blood cells (RBCs) directly in the bloodstream. Transcutaneous irradiation of hand vessels with a low pulse-energy laser leads to the microscopic local heating of hemozoin accompanied by thermoacoustic generation of acoustic waves, recorded with an ultrasound transducer attached to the skin. The high acoustic resolution and high-speed multicolor PAFC can detect and identity hemozoin in deep, large, high flow-rate blood vessels to provide the earliest and fastest malaria diagnosis within 20 seconds at an unprecedented parasitemia threshold as low as 0.0000001% (5 iRBCs/mL). This is 1,000-10,000 times better than existing clinical malaria tests. This goal will be achieved through two interconnected specific aims: (1) Develop new malaria-specific PAFC diagnostic device prototype; (2) Determine the efficacy of PAFC devices for label-free detection of iRBCs in a preclinical mouse model. The PAFC device will not be affected by hand movement or skin pigmentation. This malaria-specific PAFC technology can be used to identify asymptomatic malaria-infected individuals in a short time through gentle contact of the PA probe with the intact skin. The PAFC device can be a unique tool for malaria elimination by identifying asymptomatically infected humans, which allows targeted interventions with appropriate treatment. Overall, this method will contribute substantially to allow treatment only for those who truly are infected, while avoiding unnecessary and inappropriate overtreatment of other febrile illnesses.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2022 ( Subtotal = $0 )
2022	2019	CYTOASTRA, LLC	2 RIDGEVIEW DR	LITTLE ROCK	AR	72227	PULASKI	USA	Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research	000	2	12/7/2021	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$0
														Subtotal = $0

Issue Date FY: 2021 ( Subtotal = $0 )
2021	2019	CYTOASTRA, LLC	2 RIDGEVIEW DR	LITTLE ROCK	AR	72227	PULASKI	USA	Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research	000	2	12/22/2020	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$0
														Subtotal = $0

Issue Date FY: 2020 ( Subtotal = $0 )
2020	2019	CYTOASTRA, LLC	2 RIDGEVIEW DR	LITTLE ROCK	AR	72227	PULASKI	USA	Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research	000	2	8/6/2020	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$0
														Subtotal = $0

Issue Date FY: 2019 ( Subtotal = $300,000 )
2019	2019	CYTOASTRA, LLC	2 RIDGEVIEW DR	LITTLE ROCK	AR	72227	PULASKI	USA	Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research	000	2	4/4/2019	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$300,000
														Subtotal = $300,000

Issue Date FY: 2018 ( Subtotal = $300,000 )
2018	2018	CYTO WAVE LLC	2 RIDGEVIEW DRIVE	LITTLE ROCK	AR	72227	PULASKI	USA	Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research	000	1	2/8/2018	NEW	$300,000
														Subtotal = $300,000

Grand Total All Awards = $600,000

Top

All Categories

About

Search

Reports

Data Submission

Award Information

Multicolor Photoacoustic Malaria Detector

Award Number: R41AI138690

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY & INFECTIOUS DISEASES

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 04/01/2018

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 03/31/2021

Federal Websites

Department of Health & Human Services

HHS Operating Divisions

HHS Staff Divisions

Download A Document Viewer