Clinical application

What would you do if you had the opportunity to deliver a new microbiology platform to the world? Would you first look at identifying environmental sources of bacterial contamination? Would you use the technology to help protect the nation's food supply? Would your first choice be to protect the health of production and companion animals? Would it be it to identify infections and screen high risk patients in healthcare settings?

MicroPhage welcomed the challenge, but knows the greatest good can be made by focusing our first products in human clinical applications. Although there are many opportunities for the technology to be applied, the use of early 20th Century technology to diagnose life-threatening conditions appeared to be the greatest dilemma that the company could focus on revolutionizing.

As the below figure illustrates, MicroPhage's proprietary bacteriophage amplification technology is well suited for many clinical applications where identification of bacteria and antibiotic susceptibility testing is of interest. Bacteriophage developed to be specific to a target species is supplied in our kit along with proprietary growth medium to enhance bacterial growth and bacteriophage amplification. The clinical sample (a screening or body site swab, blood, urine, or fecal material) is combined with the proprietary reagents, mixed, and allowed to incubate. During this incubation period (dependent on target species and sample type), bacteriophage "find" and amplify off of viable target bacteria, producing a logarithmic increase in bacteriophage protein. The increase of this protein can easily be detected on a rapid immunoassay strip, such as lateral flow immunoasays – much like a home pregnancy test. The presence of a test line then corresponds to the presence of the viable target bacterium through positive bacteriophage amplification.

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