There’s an old, if arguable, adage about cancer: Virtually every case of cancer could be cured if it was identified at an early enough stage. The theory is that, if we somehow knew exactly where those first few cancerous cells were, before they had a chance to grow and spread, doctors could simply go in and remove them – end of story. The problem, of course, is that cancer cells are sneaky, staying well under the radar, at least during initial development. There is yet no quick and easy way to identify the wide range of incipient cancerous cells that can target the human body. By the time they are discovered, it can take a major effort to turn things around before it’s too late.
Much the same thing can be said of infectious diseases, such as those caused by pathogenic bacteria that kill millions of people throughout the world each year, including the U.S. Pathogenic bacteria routinely spread from small initial sources to create large scale contaminations, affecting the surfaces we touch, the food we eat, and the air we breath. In today’s global environment, bacteria can and do jump from one side of the planet to the other in the time it takes for a jet plane flight. Food of all types is rapidly distributed around the world, coming into contact with machinery and handlers at every stage. At the same time we use sophisticated chemical warfare to suppress and contain bacterial threats, we are creating more opportunities for potentially deadly contaminations to spread. In spite of the progress made in various aspects of food handling, approximately 5,000 people die every year from food-borne illnesses in the U.S. alone.
Ironically, bacterial contaminations can usually be easily dealt with outside the body. But once the contamination becomes an internal infection, a whole new set of rules comes into play. Simple chemicals used outside the body cannot be used inside the body. And the antibiotics we depend on for internal use are facing stubborn resistance from increasingly robust bacteria. As with cancer, early discovery and identification is the key. But traditional methods for detecting and identifying such bacteria can take days, requiring lengthy culturing and a professional evaluation. The time and cost involved can easily discourage the kind of steps that could spot isolated threats before they become widespread problems.
The single best answer could well be a revolutionary technology developed by a company out of California called Micro Identification Technologies Inc. What they’ve got is no less than the world’s only non-biological automated system for accurately and objectively identifying potentially dangerous bacteria. Called the MIT 1000, they system uses laser light, scattered off of extremely small target samples, together with sophisticated proprietary software, to immediately identify up to 23 species of bacteria. Culture time is cut in half, and, with no need for sending samples off to expensive labs, test costs are reduced by a whopping 95%.
The system has already been used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Japanese Ministry of Food Safety, and the company has recently arranged a $5 million equity placement agreement with Boston-based Dutchess Capital, in addition to a separate securities purchase agreement. With current growth projections for rapid testing methods at 10.2% annually, expected to reach $6.2 billion by 2013, they’ve also already lined up national and international production with OSI Optoelectronics.
For more information, visit www.micro-identification.com.
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