About Identibac

Identibac has a team of experienced scientists, who can provide advice and training on the technology and a team of business personnel, who can discuss potential business opportunities or possible collaboration projects.

Background

In the UK, the Veterinary Laboratories Agency (VLA) and the Health Protection Agency (HPA) perform thousands of diagnostic tests every year, not only to confirm the identity of animal pathogens, but also to describe them in detail for epidemiological tracing and to observe trends and emergence of disease outbreaks.

Traditionally, genes are detected using genotypic methods such as single and multiple PCR assays or phenotypic methods such as biochemical and immunological marker assays. These methods have the disadvantage of screening relatively small numbers of genes.

In order to develop new methods that gain as much information as possible about a pathogen, a range of single platform technologies were trialled. The ArrayTube™ platform was selected and the original arrays were developed. As a result of severe disease in humans caused by the emergence of antibiotic resistance and the carriage by farmed animals of VTEC E. coli arrays were developed to screen E. coli isolates for both antibiotic resistance and virulence genes.

The technology worked exceptionally well and the DNA microarrays offered a viable alternative to the traditional methods due to their ability to screen multiple markers simultaneously. Identibac evolved from the research work carried out by the Veterinary Laboratories Agency and the Health Protection Agency. The arrays that were developed are now available to laboratories throughout the world to help to improve human and animal health.

Future Developments

The Identibac platform is incredibly versatile and probes can be designed to meet many requirements. We are investigating several options on the identification of many bacterial, viral and fungal species as well as the detection and identification of many bacterial species as well as the identification of food spoilage organisms, pathogens found in food, animal feeds and other environments.

We are actively working on the next generation of products, which includes increasing the throughput using the classic 96 well plate format or strips of 8 wells, combining existing arrays on to one platform as the density of probes can be adjusted and the possibility of using proteins rather than DNA as probes. Also, preliminary data from a recent study suggests it may be possible to produce a platform to miniaturise classic serotyping.

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