October 16, 2007

 

UK firm rolls out portable system for FMD and bird flu detection
 

 

Veterinarians can now detect foot-and-mouth disease and bird flu among livestock in one rugged field kit without sending samples for laboratory analysis.

 

Smiths Detection is launching a portable detection system that will enable veterinarians to carry out on-site diagnosis of  these diseases in 90 minutes.

 

The company said these are the first two diseases to go on the kit and a wide range of tests for other diseases such as Blue Tongue would be made available after the initial systems are deployed.

 

Smiths Detection has been working with the global reference centre for foot-and-mouth disease -- the Institute for Animal Health (IAH) -- to develop and validate the system.

 

The new portable device is specifically designed to run in harsh environments and could be used in places where livestock are kept.

 

The kit comprises a simple-to-use sample preparation cartridge and a rugged portable instrument. The technology employed is a form of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), a common technique for the detection and analysis of infectious diseases.

 

The kit can analyse various sample types and allows up to five independent tests to be run simultaneously.

 

 The instrument can also be decontaminated on the spot, a critical feature in the control of disease outbreaks.

 

For the last three years, Smiths Detection has worked closely with the laboratory of Professor Larry Wangh at Brandeis University, near Boston, Massachusetts, that invented a  DNA amplification and analysis technique called Linear After The Exponential PCR (LATE PCR). The technology has since been bought over by the company.

 

LATE PCR is a significant improvement over PCR as it can identify multiple types of bacteria or virus in a single test and determine accurately the strain of an individual infection.

 

This is critical in bird flu situations, where it is highly important to know whether it is the highly infectious form.

 

The new system will be launched to vets at the World Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians conference in Australia in November 2007 and is expected to be in production in mid 2008.

 

Smiths Detection is a security firm specialised in detection of trace chemicals such as explosives and contraband in ports, airports and chemical plants. 

 

Although its main business is focussed on providing X-ray screening systems, it also has units in the life sciences and food manufacturing.

 

The UK firm, a part of Smiths Group Plc, has 2,000 employees with a revenue of GBP 412 million (US$ 841.2 million) and profits of GBP 76.5 million (US$156.2 million)  in 2006.