PathAlert™ Enables Fast, Accurate Detection of Biopathogens

Invitrogen Corp. and Agilent Technologies Inc. have announced a two-year agreement to co-market the PathAlert™ Detection System, a cost-effective screening and confirmatory detection system for infectious agents.

The companies also announced that the PathAlert™ System has undergone successful evaluations coordinated by the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In those government tests, the PathAlert System was shown to be sensitive and specific for the identification of air and waterborne pathogens.

The PathAlert Detection System can be used by government, military and research organizations for accurate detection of infectious agents such as Bacillus anthracis(anthrax), Yersinia pestis(plague), Vaccinia (smallpox simulant) and Francisella tularensis(tularemia) in samples collected from the air, food and water. According to the EPA assessment, the system accurately detected infectious agents such as anthrax and plague in drinking water with no false positives or false negatives at expected sensitivity levels.

Invitrogen and Agilent will present full results of the EPA's Environmental Technology Verification program at the upcoming American Water Works Association (AWWA) Water Security Congress in Oklahoma City, Okla., on April 12 at 9:30 a.m. CT.
The PathAlert System, which features Invitrogen's PathAlert Detection Kits and the Agilent 2100 bioanalyzer or 5100 Automated Lab-on-a-Chip Platform, will be distributed by Invitrogen.

Each PathAlert Detection Kit is a reagent system optimized for the detection of a specific infectious agent. Based on multiplex-PCR, the kits detect multiple regions of pathogen DNA and include internal and external controls, greatly reducing false positive and false negative readings. Using the PathAlert multiplex-PCR kits with the Agilent 2100 bioanalyzer and DNA chip and reagent kits, users can monitor DNA targets and controls simultaneously without the constraints imposed by conventional real-time PCR. Agilent's 5100 Automated Lab-on-a-Chip Platform can be used for biodefense applications requiring high-throughput analysis. The PathAlert System also provides less costly capabilities to detect anthrax, plague, smallpox simulant and tularemia.

The PathAlert System also offers the unique capability of multi-agent analysis in a single assay based on the biothreat agents of interest in a specific matrix, such as water, food or animal feed.