XTRN-NEW-If you go to XTRN (Otc bb .75) Xtrana's www site and read up on their SCIP product I think its goal is to get a read on this stuff in minutes rather than days...first the article then info on the SCIP from Xtrana's www site:
Biotech Companies to Help Fight Terror<
By PAUL ELIAS AP Biotechnology Writer
SAN FRANCISCO (AP)- A bubonic plague epidemic that killed thousands of prairie dogs as it swept through northern Arizona this year showed how cutting-edge detection devices can be put to use against bioterrorism
Most diseases that could be used in biological weapons are treatable if caught in time. But early detection is key, and most victims wouldn't recognize the symptoms until its too late.
Arizona fortunately is the home of one of the nation's experts on the plague, Paul Keim, a biology professor at Northern Arizona University whose lab receives more money for plague research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention than any other outside lab.
Keim examined fleas from infected prairie dogs immediately after residents noticed the dead rodents, and was able to detect the plague within hours, using technology recently developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory that spots unique strands of DNA. Usually, such a diagnosis takes at least 3 days.
The snap diagnosis enabled area residents to take precautions, and so far, only one man has been infected. He's expected to survive.
Unfortunately, most of the nation is woefully ill-equipped to respond to the plague and other pathogens that terrorists might use as biological weapons.
``The technology is available,'' Keim said. 'It's just not being used.''
The CDC takes up to 10 days to make a similar diagnosis because it conducts its tests the old-fashion way, injecting suspect fleas into live mice and waiting for them to die so they can be autopsied.
``This is still the way it's being done despite the fact that we're gearing up to fight bioterrorism,'' Keim said.
Things, of course, have changed since Sept. 11, and spending in this area should increase dramatically, said Walt Busbee, who chairs the biotech committee of the National Defense Industrial Association, a lobbying group representing 900 defense contractors.
Earlier this month, Keim said he was expecting his $1 million annual budget supplied by the CDC to be slashed to $750,000. ``I expect that to change,'' he says now.
Private sector labs also are eager to help the cause - and get some of the $40 billion Congress authorized to wage the war against terrorism and recover from the attacks. Sen. Ted Kennedy and others are insisting that at least $1 billion in emergency funding go to combat biological warfare.
``As the government budgets are increased, I expect our participation will increase,'' said David Cooper, a scientist with Menlo Park-based SRI International.
With a $12 million federal contract, SRI's scientists developed a protein-fueled, hand-held germ detector capable of confirming the presence of anthrax, small pox, Bubonic plague and other pathogens.
The detectors contain disease-fighting proteins called antibodies, each targeting a specific disease. In a suspected attack, samples from infected people or places could be suspended in a liquid solution and poured into the device, and the contents confirmed within 15 minutes, the company says.
SRI hopes to shrink the gadgets to the size of a cell phone and mass market them to police forces, hazardous material workers and emergency rooms across the country, said Cooper.
But the company has only made four prototypes, each weighing about 2.5 pounds. And without more federal support, mass producing them will be difficult.
SRI's germ detector is one of many cutting-edge tools the government is considering in its fight against bioterrorism. But contracts like these are few among biotechnology companies.
``The government needs more talent working on this problem. The private sector has not been tapped,'' and that needs to change, said Dr. Tom Inglespy of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies.
Busbee agreed: ``The biotechnology industry as a whole has not had a lot of play in this area.''
Now he expects significant spending, especially in creating vaccines and drug therapies for diseases that could be spread by terrorists.
In all, about $800 million was expected to be spent on combatting germ warfare this year by about 40 different government agencies, Inglespy said. That's twice the amount that was spent on the problem five years ago, but still not nearly enough given the events of Sept. 11, he said.
It's too early to know where and how the new cash will be spent, said Jan Walker, a spokeswoman with the military's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a five-year-old research and development lab that has seen its budget increase annually, to nearly $167 million.
From XTRN www site:
SCIP: Self Contained Integrated Particle
In 1995, Dr. John Gerdes and Dr. Diane Kozwich, conceived of a better approach to nucleic acid testing. They envisioned a small, self-contained device that would combine all the steps of DNA or RNA testing into one "closed" unit, referred to as SCIP. The sample of interest (whole blood, serum, water, tissue, etc.) would be introduced into one end of the device and a series of simple manual manipulations would move the sample to other compartments of the device where extraction, amplification and detection would occur automatically, all without ever opening the device. Such a device would not only limit contamination, but would also eliminate the need for a laboratory full of expensive equipment and technicians, opening up nucleic acid testing to doctor office and field uses. Such a device would offer improved performance, ease of use, as well as time and cost savings to nucleic acid testing applications in markets as diverse as human and animal disease diagnostics, drug discovery, forensics, paternity testing, and environmental and food safety testing.
The SCIP device incorporates Xtra Bind™ for the DNA extraction step. The device is designed to work with a variety of available amplification schemes, important given the continuing innovation in this step of DNA testing. Finally, the SCIP device borrows from the world of immunodiagnostics a simple detection technology similar to that used in home pregnancy tests to produce a signal that the DNA of interest is either present of absent, without the need for instruments. Initial experiments using the SCIP concepts have produced detection sensitivities that meet or exceed those of currently available DNA testing approaches.
Our unique, innovative, yet simple SCIP cartridge incorporating microparticle lateral flow detection removes many of the critical road blocks to technological transfer of nucleic acid-based testing. These road blocks consist of the high cost of testing, the high complexity and cost of complicated instrumentation, and the problem of specimen cross contamination. Our concept involves simple instrumentation and will cost much less than approaches involving sophisticated instrumentation, robotics, computerization, etc. Manual testing utilizing this cartridge will require little training to set up, perform, and interpret (CLIA low complexity). This new low tech approach to high technology should produce a significant shift of certain types of diagnostic testing from centralized urban reference laboratories to rural settings or point-of-care testing in the office or at bedside. |
