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"We are excited to be working with the Lovelace Respiratory ResearchInstitute, a world leader in respiratory disease surveillance, to aid inunderstanding the transmission of influenza viruses," said Michael Treble,President of Ibis and Vice President of Isis. "Our service laboratorycapabilities provide us the flexibility to support important and diverseprojects, such as this one with the LRRI. Consistent with our business model,with this government funding we will not only fulfill the grant's specifiedresearch and screening activities, but we will also be able to incorporate anyresults and assay kit improvements into our commercial offerings."
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The award to Ibis will fund the development of expanded influenzadetection capabilities with assays to uniquely identify and characterizeinfluenza strains and aid in the tracking of influenza transmissions.Additionally, because of the high-throughput, cost-effective and highlyspecific characteristics of the Ibis T5000 Biosensor System, as part of thefunded research, Ibis will be analyzing a large number of samples generatedfrom the influenza surveillance research.
"This grant will enable us to continue to advance our research inunderstanding the transmission of viral particles in order to prevent pandemicspread of virulent respiratory diseases, including influenza," said FrederickT. Koster, M.D., Associate Scientist, Infectious Diseases Program, LovelaceRespiratory Research Institute. "In order to screen large numbers ofbiological samples, we needed a technology partner that could providehigh-resolution characterization of closely related viral strains, and coulddo so with appropriate sensitivity and high-throughput efficiency."
Respiratory diseases such as asthma, emphysema, influenza, and chronicbronchitis are on the increase worldwide. LRRI, one of the nation's largestindependent research institutions and the only one focused solely onrespiratory health, is committed to eradicating respiratory diseases throughresearch aimed at understanding their causes and biological mechanisms,eliminating exposures to causal agents and developing more effectivetreatments.
Ibis' universal flu surveillance capabilities were described in a recentresearch study published in PLoS ONE in May 2007. In the study, Ibis' Dr.Sampath and colleagues report that they detected and correctly identified 92mammalian and avian influenza isolates, including 29 avian H5N1 isolates.They also analyzed 656 human respiratory samples and showed correct,simultaneous identification of the viral species and subtypes with greaterthan 97 percent sensitivity and specificity.
ABOUT THE IBIS T5000 BIOSENSOR SYSTEM AND IBIS BIOSCIENCES, INC.
Ibis Biosciences, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Isis Pharmaceuticals,has developed the Ibis T5000(TM) Biosensor System for rapid identification andcharacterization of infectious agents. The Ibis T5000 is capable ofidentifying virtually all bacteria, viruses and fungi, and can provideinformation about drug resistance, virulence and strain type of thesepathogens. Commercial applications for the Ibis T5000 Biosensor Systeminclude epidemiologic surveillance, monitoring of pandemic diseases,i
