Mobious prototype test detects positive sample in 40 secs
immunoassay that identified a low concentration bacterial sample
within 40 seconds, vastly improving on the six - forty eight hours
it currently takes to identify the same sample.
The prototype is not only much faster than conventional tests but due to the shorter integration time the system is also more sensitive. The test, if developed further, could have applications to immunoassays as well as direct genetic tests.
The company hope that it could also provide high sensitivity tests for diseases such as HIV, Hepatitis, MRSA, Bird flu as well as markers such as those for stroke or heart attack from a variety of sample types in a minute or less.
"We are very pleased to have demonstrated our technology to a major diagnostics player. I am confident that this is the first step in a commercialisation program that will lead to global uptake of the technology across a broad range of fields," said Daniel Densham, managing director of Mobious Genomics.
The Accelaffin technology consists of a microfluidic processor, which uses biochip hybridisation technology.
Hybridisation is a critical step in the successful use of polynucleotide arrays. However, the hybridisation step has increasingly become a bottleneck in the Biochip assay process.
In general, hybridisation reactions take about 4 to 12 hours (up to 48 hours for some expression protocols). Any reduction in this "dead time" would benefit the throughput for all applications and offer even greater potential benefits in the diagnostic and point-of-care markets.
The Accelaffin processor uses microfluidic and biophysical technologies and can reduce hybridisation times to less than 10 minutes. This will increase the throughput of hybridisation platforms.
The Accelaffin microfluidic process can potentially be installed on all biochip processor systems. This includes DNA and RNA chips, proteomic chips, as well as more sophisticated "hybrid" array systems.
