SMARThivDRmos: A complexity-free and Cost Effective Technology for Monitoring HIV Drug Resistance in Resource-Limited Situations

We design an HIV drug resistance monitoring system that is amenable to resource-poor and low expertise countries: SMARThivDRmos. Our system overcomes cost and complexity barriers, the two main factors that have so far limited access of HIV drug resistance monitoring to resource-poor and low expertise countries. We reduce complexity by transferring complex steps to computer execution, and we reduce cost by obviating sequencing requirement using DNA hybridization methods. We reduce both cost and complexity by importing template sequences for probe design, from freely accessible public HIV drug resistance databases using our SMARTsearch engine. We reduce complexity related to probe design in the DNA hybridization step by incorporating SMARTProbeMarker, a user-friendly version of a probe design algorithm, into the system. We reduce complexity related to HIV drug resistance interpretation, using web-based freely accessible public HIV drug resistance interpretation systems. We reduce cost by obviating sequencing requirement, using SMARThivDRmos DNA hybridization-based protocol for identifying HIV drug resistance mutations. Compared to previously developed HIV drug resistance monitoring systems that comports a sequencing step, SMARThivDRmos is a sequencing-free analysis system. SMARThivDRmos is a complexity-free and Cost effective alternative technology that is suitable for monitoring HIV drug resistance in resource-poor and low expertise countries.