UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Ketan Dighe, a fourth-year doctoral candidate in biomedical engineering at Penn State, was recently awarded a two-year predoctoral fellowship in translational medicine by the PhRMA Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports innovative biopharmaceutical research.
The fellowship supports research projects that “focus on identifying unmet clinical needs and developing new diagnostic, therapeutic and computational approaches and technologies to improve patient care,” according to the PhRMA Foundation’s website. The award will support Dighe’s research on developing an affordable rapid companion diagnostic test for gonorrhea. This test would help patients get matched to the therapies that are most likely to benefit them.
Caused by a bacterium, gonorrhea is a sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevalent around the world, with the World Health Organization estimating — in the most recent report on the topic — more than 82 million new cases globally in 2020. Gonorrhea is usually treated with antibiotics, but the bacterium is becoming increasingly resistant to almost every class of antibiotics on the market, leaving doctors and patients without a guaranteed cure.
“Antimicrobial resistance is projected to cause 10 million deaths annually by 2050, with gonorrhea being one of the most concerning examples,” Dighe said.
Early detection and treatment of gonorrhea is crucial to prevent the spread of infection and the development of complications, according to Dighe, but he explained that the stigma surrounding STIs may discourage many individuals from getting tested, delaying detection. Even when a patient does test positive, it’s challenging to quickly determine the specific strain of gonorrhea bacteria and which first-line antibiotics might best treat it. Bacteria evolve quickly, with subsequent cohorts able to outmaneuver antibiotics used against previous generations. This often leads to increased reliance on last-resort, broad-spectrum drugs, which further accelerates drug resistance.
To address this unmet need, Dighe said he aims to develop a simple test that both detects gonorrhea and identifies its drug resistance profile in under 15 minutes, with no need for complex lab equipment. In addition to confirming whether a patient has gonorrhea, this test will indicate exactly which drugs would work best for each patient, allowing antibiotics to be more effectively allocated to those who need them.
With support from the PhRMA fellowship, Dighe will aim to improve treatment for individual patients and generate real-time data on how resistance is spreading across communities, focusing on designing a test that can be used effectively in settings such as community health centers, screening programs and resource-limited clinics.
Dighe plans to build on the methods he previously applied in the development of the first rapid tests for chlamydia and gonorrhea. Refining the procedure for using single-stranded oligonucleotide probes and gold nanoparticles to detect DNA sequences that are highly conserved between different strains of gonorrhea-causing bacteria, Dighe said he hopes to implement CRISPR-based gene editing technology to identify unique genetic markers in a wider variety of strains, including those that have developed antibiotic resistance.
“If we can bring detection and resistance profiling together into one simple, rapid test, doctors can make smarter treatment decisions on the spot, prescribing the right drug for the right patient rather than defaulting to the last-resort option,” Dighe said. “That’s better for the patient and better for public health.”
Dighe earned his bachelor’s degree from Shiv Nadar University in India, where he completed a major in electronics and communication and a minor in biotechnology. As a doctoral candidate at Penn State, he conducts research in the Laboratory for Materials in Medicine, which is led by Dighe’s adviser, Dipanjan Pan, the Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Chair Professor in Nanomedicine and professor of nuclear engineering, of chemistry, of biomedical engineering and of materials science and engineering.
“Ketan has consistently impressed me with the rigor of his science, the clarity of his writing and his maturity as a researcher,” Pan said. “He is a natural leader in the lab, and this national recognition will significantly strengthen his trajectory and impact.”
Under Pan’s mentorship, Dighe has contributed to similar projects, including the development of an at-home device for detection of a biomarker implicated in the uterine disease endometriosis and a quick test to differentiate between vaccine-induced false positives from active HIV infection.
“I cannot overstate the urgent need for accessible diagnostic tools for STI patients that can also address the development of antimicrobial resistance within those communities,” Dighe said. “I am so incredibly grateful to the PhRMA Foundation for recognizing the importance of this work and providing an opportunity to improve patient care at the grassroots level.”