Newswire:
March 16, 2007 06:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time
CombiMatrix Awarded New US Air Force Contract to Advance Influenza-Detection System
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Acacia Research Corporation (Nasdaq:CBMX) (Nasdaq:ACTG) announced today that its CombiMatrix group has been awarded a new contract worth $869,000 by the Air Force Research Laboratory to advance its Influenza Genotyping System. The field-deployable system is based upon the company?s CustomArray? microarray platform and ElectraSense? detection technologies. The system can provide the user with a compact and rugged analyzer that can identify H5N1 bird flu as well as all human strains of influenza A and various other upper-respiratory pathogens of interest.
Conventional assays can either identify the matrix protein (common to all influenza A strains) or individual variants of the two cataloging proteins, hemagglutinin (H) and neurominidase (N). The CombiMatrix system is the most-comprehensive detection system available. In a single assay, it can identify all of the variants of influenza A, including those that have resulted in millions of deaths in the past, as well as the deadly Eurasian Influenza (H5N1 bird flu). The influenza genotyping assay can be tailored to provide the level of detail that the user needs to understand and predict trends during the worldwide flu season. This system has been used to detect bird flu (H5N1) and various human influenza strains (various serotypes including H1 and H3) in both animal and human samples and currently is used by several government laboratories in their influenza studies.
?Over the last several years, there has been concern about the emergence of the highly pathogenic bird flu strain (H5N1) that could lead to a pandemic,? said Dr. Amit Kumar, President and CEO of CombiMatrix. "Identifying and tracking mutations in that strain is important. In addition, the common strains of flu continue to take a great toll in terms of human suffering and death because they are exquisitely adapted to us. Our system can identify H5N1, can determine when any other strain of influenza A is gaining an upper hand in a population, and can identify other infectious diseases that cause flu-like symptoms."
Recently, over 2000 new genetic sequences of influenza have been published (http://www.niaid.nih.gov/dmid/genomes/mscs/influenza.htm). Dr. David Danley, Director of Homeland Security and Defense Programs at CombiMatrix stated, ?We are pleased to receive additional support from the Department of Defense to tailor our system towards supporting Force Health Protection. Though there are a number of activities that are funded with this award, one of our first activities will be to update the array to include newly published sequence information on influenza A variants of human concern. This effort demonstrates the power of our technology to rapidly refine our arrays as new information becomes available.?
March 16, 2007 06:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time
CombiMatrix Awarded New US Air Force Contract to Advance Influenza-Detection System
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Acacia Research Corporation (Nasdaq:CBMX) (Nasdaq:ACTG) announced today that its CombiMatrix group has been awarded a new contract worth $869,000 by the Air Force Research Laboratory to advance its Influenza Genotyping System. The field-deployable system is based upon the company?s CustomArray? microarray platform and ElectraSense? detection technologies. The system can provide the user with a compact and rugged analyzer that can identify H5N1 bird flu as well as all human strains of influenza A and various other upper-respiratory pathogens of interest.
Conventional assays can either identify the matrix protein (common to all influenza A strains) or individual variants of the two cataloging proteins, hemagglutinin (H) and neurominidase (N). The CombiMatrix system is the most-comprehensive detection system available. In a single assay, it can identify all of the variants of influenza A, including those that have resulted in millions of deaths in the past, as well as the deadly Eurasian Influenza (H5N1 bird flu). The influenza genotyping assay can be tailored to provide the level of detail that the user needs to understand and predict trends during the worldwide flu season. This system has been used to detect bird flu (H5N1) and various human influenza strains (various serotypes including H1 and H3) in both animal and human samples and currently is used by several government laboratories in their influenza studies.
?Over the last several years, there has been concern about the emergence of the highly pathogenic bird flu strain (H5N1) that could lead to a pandemic,? said Dr. Amit Kumar, President and CEO of CombiMatrix. "Identifying and tracking mutations in that strain is important. In addition, the common strains of flu continue to take a great toll in terms of human suffering and death because they are exquisitely adapted to us. Our system can identify H5N1, can determine when any other strain of influenza A is gaining an upper hand in a population, and can identify other infectious diseases that cause flu-like symptoms."
Recently, over 2000 new genetic sequences of influenza have been published (http://www.niaid.nih.gov/dmid/genomes/mscs/influenza.htm). Dr. David Danley, Director of Homeland Security and Defense Programs at CombiMatrix stated, ?We are pleased to receive additional support from the Department of Defense to tailor our system towards supporting Force Health Protection. Though there are a number of activities that are funded with this award, one of our first activities will be to update the array to include newly published sequence information on influenza A variants of human concern. This effort demonstrates the power of our technology to rapidly refine our arrays as new information becomes available.?