Immune Monitoring and Surveillance: Essential To Innovations In the Fight Against Infectious Disease
As an established leader in immune monitoring and surveillance, IST partners with leading organizations in research and development of infectious diseases.
The researchers at ImmunoSite Technologies have been selected for numerous grant awards from early 2007 to late 2009 by a prestigious international group of medical researchers known as the CD4 Initiative. The objective of the group is to develop a CD4 cell count test that can be made inexpensively available to millions of HIV-positive people in resource-poor nations. IST has been awarded continued funding by the CD4 Initiative to further develop quality assurance (QA) material for the test, and Zyomyx Inc., a California company, was awarded continued 
funding to develop a simple, non-electronic, point-of-care device. The QA material is in the clinical trial phase, to ensure that the test device provides results that are accurate and precise.
Principal investigator on the CD4 Initiative project at ImmunoSite Technologies is Sybil D’Costa, Ph.D., VP of Research and Development. “The main challenge for our team has been to develop a cell-based, quality assurance reagent that mimics the properties of CD4 T cells in whole blood, and will operate properly and consistently in elevated temperatures, such as those common in sub-Saharan Africa and similar countries,” said Dr. D’Costa. The IST team has successfully developed QA material that works well with the test device, and is continuing to test performance as they move into production.
Key to the success of the IST team is their extensive expertise in cellular analysis, cellular quality control material development, and assay development. Dr. D’Costa has worked together with Wade Bolton, Ph.D., president and CEO of IST, for almost 10 years developing assays for immune system monitoring and surveillance. Both previously worked together in the Custom Biopharma Solutions division at Beckman Coulter Inc., a world leader in clinical diagnostics, developing innovative cellular analysis products and reagent systems.
