By Ben Butkus

DNA Electronics will begin pre-clinical pilot trials later this year to prepare its rapid, handheld, semiconductor-based DNA testing platform for clinical diagnostic use, the company said this week.

To that end, the London-based company will collaborate with the lab of Eric Topol at Scripps Research Institute in the area of pharmacogenetic analysis for Plavix response; and with an unspecified lab at St. Mary's University College in London in the area of infectious disease testing, PCR Insider has learned.

PCR Insider spoke with DNA Electronics CEO Chris Toumazou and CTO Leila Shepherd this week following the company's announcement that it had inked an agreement granting skincare company GeneOnyx access to its point-of-care genetic testing device, called Genalysis, to provide rapid, over-the-counter genetic testing to consumers for the purposes of recommending genetically tailored cosmetic products.

The deal with GeneOnyx is the "first significant license" for DNA Electronics' testing platform, but is just the tip of the iceberg, Toumazou said, as the company is now in the throes of honing the platform for in vitro diagnostics use.

"We've been in stealth mode, and we're excited that [Genalysis] is working now," Toumazou said. "The key objective still is to tackle the healthcare and clinical market. But in the past year there has been all this hype about handheld genetic devices, but we don't know anything to date that actually works. We wanted to make sure the world sees that we have something that works, and works well, so we're applying it to a setting that can demonstrate that. That's why we decided to partner with GeneOnyx."

DNA Electronics' current molecular diagnostics work actually brings the company full circle to its earliest days, when it spun out of Imperial College London to commercialize the discovery that when nucleotide pairs come together during DNA synthesis, they release hydrogen ions, which can be detected as an electrical signal on a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor, or CMOS chip.

"We patented that idea, and we spun out DNA Electronics in 2002 with aspirations from the very beginning to create a handheld diagnostic technology," Toumazou said. But, he added, the company first applied the technology "to what [we thought] was the really growing field, which was DNA sequencing."

As a result, DNA Electronics negotiated first a non-exclusive license with Ion Torrent, which adopted the technology as part of its next-generation sequencing platform now called the PGM and sold by Life Technologies, which acquired Ion Torrent in late 2010. After that deal, DNA Electronics then forged a partnership with Roche 454 to integrate the technology into a competing sequencing platform.

"While all that was taking place, which was really a good way of bringing in revenues, we had a team incubating our holy grail, which was this microchip-based diagnostic device," Toumazou said.

Read the rest here:
DNAe Plans Pilot Trials of Handheld Semiconductor DNA Testing Platform for PGx, Infectious Disease