Fight against TB is well in hand
The Age
Saturday September 5, 2009
Melbourne-based company MycroLab beat 300 entrants from 19 countries to win this year's INNOVIC's International Next Big Thing Awards with its innovative, hand-held medical diagnostic system.MycroLab's chief science officer Micah Atkin (pictured with the device) conceived the idea to save millions of lives. "The first use for the MycroLab system will be to test for tuberculosis, a worldwide pandemic that is the leading cause of death from infectious disease," he says."A third of the world's population carry latent TB infection and one in every 10 of these people will become sick with active TB in their lifetime. TB is contagious €“ it kills two million people a year."Atkin says each person with active TB infects on average 10 to 15 people a year. "Multi and extreme drug-resistant TB are rapidly growing problems and are very difficult to cure," he says."To stop the spread of TB globally, the world needs better diagnostics that are rapid, practical and accurate in resource-poor settings, which is critical to ensuring people receive proper and timely treatment."The winning design combines a PDA-sized universal instrument and credit card-sized "smart" card that incorporates all the necessary assay (test) chemistry for users to apply a fluid sample (that could be blood or urine).The instrument provides a laboratory-quality result on screen with data downloaded to a computer system and stored on a smart card, enabling anyone to perform laboratory-quality tests quickly and easily.MycroLab was founded in 2003 by Atkin and his business partner Michael Curran. "We met at Swinburne [University] while I was studying my PhD in microfluidics and he was doing a masters in entrepreneurship and innovation."Together they are taking their winning invention to developing countries. "High costs and technical complexity means these countries, where even electricity can be a major problem, have been denied advanced technology, which is why they use outdated technologies such as sputum microscopy that has a 40 per cent sensitivity rate for TB," he explains.In comparison, MycroLab will be providing a simple, low-cost system. "It is also fast, highly accurate, completely portable and usable for many different tests, which means patients can be rapidly tested and put on appropriate treatments for early intervention to improve outcomes," Atkin says.The system will initially be made available to health clinics, pharmacies, laboratories, hospitals and for quarantine purposes.After 10 years of working on the project, which has incurred major costs, with no income, MycroLab is looking to raise capital to develop its TB test to the next stage.Atkin suggests it could be government-funded to deal with certain national health issues such as TB, prison drug screening or for private companies looking to generate revenue to meet a wide variety of IVD testing needs.The cost of the instrument is $2500 and accompanying cards cost about $15-$25. However, Atkin says this is test and market-dependent. "An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of the cure," he says.More health jobs at mycareer.com.au/health.WINNING CONCEPTBACKGROUND The International Next Big Thing Award was instigated by INNOVIC, a not-for-profit organisation to showcase and reward the best inventions and innovations. This was the fifth year this award has been run but the first time it has been open to global markets. It attracted 300 applications from 19 countries. Cash and prizes valued at more than $60,000 were awarded to winning entrants.SUPPORTERS Include KPMG, MYOB, Davies Collison Cave, Rouse & Co, City of Melbourne, Australian Productivity Council, IP Australia, National University of Singapore, ANZATech, AusBiotech, Melbourne Museum, the Victorian Government and AusIndustry.LINKSmycrolab.com; innovic.com.au; nextbigthingaward.com
© 2009 The Age
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