New tech licensed to combat deadly swine flu virus
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April 28, 2009
Filed under cold & flu, flu
CM NEWS – Just in time when scientists are racing to find methods to fight the rapidly spreading swine flu, a new technology invented by researchers in the University of Colorado in recent years has been licensed. The “FluChip” technology gives scientists a new tool to quickly determine the subtypes of swine flu virus in only 11 hours, compared to 4 days with conventional methods.
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Robert Kuchta and KathyRowlen display a scanner and the FluChip. |
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InDevR, a small biotech company in Boulder, CO, announced today that they have licensed the FluChip technology from the University of Colorado. The FluChip was invented by a joint team of scientists at the University of Colorado and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in an NIH sponsored effort led by Professor Kathy Rowlen.
Rowlen, now the CEO of InDevR, said that InDevR has arranged to test genetic material from the recent swine H1N1 virus on the MChip as well as other versions of the FluChip which are under development.
According to Rowlen “Based on work we conducted a couple of years ago, it appears that the M-gene version of the FluChip will be able to distinguish human H1N1 viruses from the new swine H1N1 virus. If that proves to be the case, the FluChip will be a much needed and powerful new tool for surveillance since all of the current influenza diagnostics on the market are unable to subtype this virus.”
What is FluChip? A novel “Flu Chip” developed at the University of Colorado at Boulder that can determine the genetic signatures of specific influenza strains from patient samples within hours may help world health officials combat coming epidemics and pandemics.
Tests last month on the new technology by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta showed the CU-Boulder Flu Chip can determine the genetic make-up of types and subtypes of the flu virus in about 11 hours, said CU-Boulder Professor Kathy Rowlen of the chemistry and biochemistry department. Current methods for characterizing flu subtypes infecting patients take about four days.
The chip, which can be configured to test for all known flu virus strains as well as new variant strains, was evaluated for three primary subtypes of flu in the October CDC test — the avian flu strain H5N1, and two of the most common human flu types worldwide in recent winters, H1N1 and H3N2. The chip was more than 90% accurate and will be tested again “side by side” with standard flu-virus culturing methods for accuracy and speed at the CDC’s Atlanta headquarters next month.
The Flu Chip fits on a microscope slide and contains an array of microscopic spots. Genetic bits of information that are complimentary to known, individual influenza strains are “spotted” robotically in an array, where each row of three spots contains a specific sequence of “capture” DNA. Each spot is approximately one-hundredth of an inch in diameter. The microarray is then immersed in a wash of influenza gene fragments obtained from the fluid of an infected individual.
RNA fragments from the infected fluid bind to specific DNA segments on the microarray like a key in a lock, indicating both a match and that the virus signature is present, she said. The captured RNA is then labelled with another complimentary sequence that also contains a fluorescent dye, and such “hits” light up like a pinball machine when the chip is inserted into a laser scanner.
The Flu Chip also should be able to recognize mutations that might occur in avian flu H5N1, which has been spreading rapidly from bird to bird in Asia, Russia and parts of Europe. While the avian virus does not now spread effectively from person to person, world health officials are fearful the strain will mutate and become transmittable between humans, possibly triggering a worldwide pandemic.
The most popular diagnostic tests for influenza include rapid immunoassays, which are only able to identify the type (A or B) of influenza virus, and reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction assays, which were designed for human-adapted influenza viruses and are not able to identify the swine H1N1 subtype. State Public Health Laboratories must now send any influenza A viruses that cannot be subtyped using existing diagnostics to the CDC for analysis by genome sequencing or viral isolation.
The CDC must select viruses to analyze since it is not possible to run every sample collected from a large number of Public Health Labs.
The M-gene based FluChip has been demonstrated to delineate human-adapted viruses from non-human viruses, such as the H1N1 virus that caused the 1918 “Spanish Flu”. “Since the FluChip assay can be conducted within a single day it could be employed in State Public Health Laboratories to greatly enhance influenza surveillance and our ability to track the virus,” Rowlen said.
InDevR will combine the FluChip technology with an innovative detection technology (NESATM), which InDevR also licensed from the University of Colorado and further developed with NIH sponsorship, to make the FluChip assay inexpensive and easy to use in any lab that has basic PCR capabilities.
“Kathy and her team have been engaged with this and similar diagnostic technology for many years,” said Mary Tapolsky, Senior Licensing Manager at the University of Colorado Technology Transfer Office. “CU TTO is excited about this experienced and motivated group developing and commercializing this promising technology.”
