artus GmbH will be participating in a project funded by the European Union (EU) for the standardization of PCR diagnostics of tropical fever viruses and smallpox viruses.

At the beginning of 2004, artus GmbH and seven European laboratories joined together in order to develop standardized PCR procedures for the diagnosis of tropical fever viruses and smallpox viruses. This consortium will be supported for three years by the European Commission within the 6th research framework programme. The coordinator is the Bernhard-Nocht-Institute for Tropical Medicine (Hamburg). Further members of the consortium are artus GmbH, the Philipps-University of Marburg, the Pasteur-Institute (Lyon/France), the Health Protection Agencies in Wiltshire (UK), the Swedish Institute of Infectious Disease Control (Stockholm/Sweden) as well as the Institute for Microbiology of the Federal Armed Forces (Bundeswehr, Munich).

The main goals of the cooperation are:
1. The development and distribution of standardized PCR assays for the diagnosis of variola viruses and viruses causing hemorrhagic fever (Ebola virus, Marburg virus, Lassa virus, Crimean-Congo-hemorrhagic fever virus).

2. The production of these assays as ready-to-use kits by artus GmbH in order to guarantee the safe use of the technology for the detection of the most important viruses. These test procedures are applied in rapid first tentative diagnostics and are also available for laboratories which do not have direct access to P4 facilities.

In addition, the development of a second series of assays is planned for use in confirmation diagnostics by the European high-security laboratories.