Bio-Seeq detects infection

Global technology specialist Smiths Detection is developing clinical point-of-care diagnostic technology in a bid to rapidly detect infections such as MRSA and Clostridium difficile and send the results direct to hospital databases.

Bio-Seeq (pictured below) is based on a veterinary system that is undergoing trials. Dr Jay Lewington, chief technical officer of Smiths Detection Diagnostics, said very little had to be changed technically for the clinical version.

'It uses most of the technology in the veterinary device,' he said. 'We left a few things out as it doesn't need a GPS, it's not so portable as it's used in a hospital, and it's not as rugged.'

The tests use the LATE PCR (Linear After The Exponential Polymerase Chain Reaction) technique developed at Massachusetts' Brandeis University in the US six years ago and patented last April.

It is based on a special type of polymerised chain reaction, a process for analysing nucleic acids and DNA. The version Smiths uses amplifies just one side of the DNA double helix, producing a single-strand product. This has significant advantages, principally that it can easily have parallel tests carried out so more characteristics can be examined.