With current technology, it can take weeks and multiple lab personnel to detect disease-causing bacteria and to determine the antimicrobial resistance profile for each isolated bacterium. The result is physicians and veterinarians beginning treatment prior to knowing exactly what they are up against. With our new technology, this entire process is reduced from a matter of weeks to just 24 hours.

Our technology detects and characterizes hundreds of genus, species and serotypes of pathogens, and identifies a community antimicrobial resistance profile. Our spotted microarray is currently capable of detecting 588 genes in triplicate from bacteria, including virulence genes, antimicrobial genes and heavy metal resistance genes. We have identified and validated the know-how to extract DNA from complex samples such as animal feces, soil and water and streamlined the labeling and hybridization protocols. Many argue that microarrays are unreliable, but by incorporating a 25-mer to each printed spot on the microarray, we can ensure that a negative hybridization of any given spot is a true negative result and not a failure to print the intended probe. Our tools and protocols are successful in identifying genetic targets with high specificity, reliability, and reproducibility in complex sample matrices and have been validated by comparing the results to traditional “gold-standard” procedures. Finally, this simple technology is easily customizable for use in any area of bacterial analysis.