Hi,

I know David is always asking for new challenges and areas of research, so how about having a crack at the Longitude Prize? http://www.longitudeprize.org/challenge/antibiotics

The challenge is " to create a cheap, accurate, rapid and easy-to-use point of care test kit for bacterial infections."

"Point-of-care test kits will allow more targeted use of antibiotics, and an overall reduction in misdiagnosis and prescription. Effective and accurate point of care tests will form a vital part of the toolkit for stewardship of antibiotics in the future. This will ensure that the antibiotics we have now will be effective for longer and we can continue to control infections during routine and major procedures. "

So a simple set of specific protein binders on a chip/wells/card of some sort seems to meet the requirements.

Oh, and there's a $15 million prize....!

Failing that, how about MRSA, C Diff, TB or African Sleeping Sickness binders?