WORLDTECHNIH–NASA QuSAFE Challenge
What happened
The Quantum-Enabled Predictive Preclinical NAMs for Toxicity and Safety (QuSAFE) Challenge, a collaboration between the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and NASA, advances quantum-enabled sensing for in vitro NAMs, such as organoids and microphysiological systems (MPS), to improve drug safety while reducing animal use. In vitro NAMs, such as organoids and microphysiological systems (MPS), can generate human-relevant data for drug development and safety evaluation.
However, conventional assays and imaging are often noisy, invasive, and not sensitive enough. As a result, weak, early, and low-abundance biological signals can go undetected, and destructive measurements make it hard to monitor dynamic processes over time.
Quantum-enabled sensing approaches can offer ultra-high sensitivity, improved signal-to-noise performance, and nanoscale resolution, overcoming detection and measurement limitations that today’s approaches can’t reach.