Blood tests to track gut infections in young children
Serologic measures of enteric pathogen transmission for intervention studies and population monitoring in low-resource settings
This work uses blood antibody tests to track how gut infections spread in young children in low-resource communities and to see whether water, sanitation, and nutrition programs reduce that spread.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | University of California, San Francisco NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (San Francisco, United States) |
| Project ID | NIH-11168717 on NIH RePORTER |
What this research studies
If you or your child take part, researchers will collect small blood samples to measure antibodies that show past exposure to many gut infections at once. These multiplex antibody tests capture infections that might be missed by stool tests done only occasionally. The team will compare antibody patterns from communities that received water, sanitation, handwashing, and nutrition interventions to those that did not. They will also use maps to find neighborhoods with the highest combined burden of different pathogens.
Who could benefit from this research
Good fit: Ideal participants are infants and young children living in low-resource settings (for example communities like those previously enrolled in trials in Kenya and Bangladesh) whose households are eligible for WASH and nutrition intervention studies.
Not a fit: People in high-income settings or those without repeated exposure to enteric pathogens are unlikely to gain direct benefit from this work.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this approach could help target public-health programs to the communities and interventions that most reduce children's exposure to harmful gut infections.
How similar studies have performed: Earlier studies have successfully used multiplex antibody tests to detect past enteric infections, and this project builds on those methods by applying them in large trials and spatial analyses.
Where this research is happening
San Francisco, United States
- University of California, San Francisco — San Francisco, United States (Active)
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Arnold, Benjamin F — University of California, San Francisco
- Study coordinator: Arnold, Benjamin F
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page below.