GeneCapture, a resident associate company on the campus of HudsonAlpha, has won contracts from two Department of Defense agencies to prepare its portable rapid pathogen detection technology for independent and in-field testing. These new awards bring GeneCapture’s total awards from the DOD up to $5.5 Million.
The company has been selected for a $1.1 Million SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) Phase II contract with the Defense Health Agency, after successfully demonstrating its approach to identifying mixed infections and their antibiotic susceptibility. The application is for point of care wound management in austere environments. The scope of the effort includes designing a new disposable cartridge to report the antibiotic susceptibility directly from the sample in 30-90 minutes.
In addition, GeneCapture has been awarded a $1 Million follow-on contract to a Chemical and Biological Defense (CBD) SBIR contract to further mature GeneCapture’s portable infection detection CAPTURE™ platform and allow for independent testing. The contract was awarded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) on behalf of the Joint Science and Technology Office for Chemical and Biological Defense (JSTO-CBD). The work is supporting the JSTO-CBD Medical Diagnostics Division and addresses requirements of the Joint Chemical and Biological Defense Program.
GeneCapture has developed a consumable sample-to-answer test for multiple viral and bacterial pathogens identified as potential threats to the warfighter.
“Our rapid diagnostics system is designed to be transportable for far-forward operations without the need for reagent refrigeration or grid power,” says Peggy Sammon, CEO of GeneCapture. “This will greatly reduce the logistics requirements for remote operations, making testing more accessible.”
The two-year contract requires the delivery of test prototypes to independent labs including overseas locations where endemic pathogens are found.
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About GeneCapture: GeneCapture’s mission is to bring ‘infection detection’ out of the lab and directly to the patient location, whether at a doctor’s office, an airport, a cruise ship, or a battlefield, by developing a rapid infection detection device for use in point of care medicine. GeneCapture is a resident associate company on the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology campus in Huntsville, Alabama, a leading research institute in genetics and genomics. www.genecapture.com
