July 18–Laguna Hills, CA– Electropure, Inc., a maker of fluid treatment and monitoring equipment, has announced that its subsidiary, Micro Imaging Technology, was granted a U.S. Patent for a laser-based technology that detects and identifies potentially harmful and sometimes deadly microbes in real-time.
“This opens the way to global commercialization of a rapid, highly accurate means to identify dangerous, disease-causing, microbes,” said Floyd Panning, president of Electropure. “We are continuing to expand our portfolio of U.S. and foreign patent applications on this innovative technology and considering strategic license arrangements so that our product can reach the market quickly.”
The technology can play a critical safety role in many applications, such as in the food processing, drinking water, and clinical and medical fields.
“We have demonstrated fast and accurate detection of both fluid and food-borne pathogens, including E. coli, Cryptosporidium, Giardia, Listeria, and Salmonella,” says one of the inventors, Dr. David Haavig, chief scientist and general manager of Micro Imaging Technology. “The most exciting feature of this technology is its ability to identify bacterial species in a matter of minutes where current conventional methods may take hours, sometimes days.”
And unlike complex DNA techniques, preparation time and technical expertise required with the new technology is minimal, which the company says can translate into a cost-effective tool for testing food and water supplies before delivery for public consumption.
Right now adequate testing for deadly microbes like salmonella and E. coli involves growing clutures to identify the strand of pathogen, which can take days.
“Food processing plants and municipal water agencies just can’t shut down delivery while they wait a couple of days for test results,” Panning says. “Meanwhile, an unsuspecting public may have been served up an unhealthy dose of contaminated food or water by the time the results are in.
Haavig and Panning say the technology will significantly reduce the time and cost of testing. And with the added threat of bio-terrorism, the issuance of the patent allows the company to “participate in homeland security efforts being initiated by the federal government.”