Acacia's CombiMatrix to collaborate with animal laboratory on early detection system for avian flu

By E. Janene Geiss

Philadelphia, May 2 - Acacia Research Corp. said Tuesday that its CombiMatrix group will collaborate with the Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory on influenza testing.

A broad interagency effort is being undertaken to monitor the Pacific Flyway to determine if the seasonal migration of birds will bring the highly pathogenic Eurasian strain of avian influenza (H5N1) into North America and the United States, according to a company news release.

This effort is being coordinated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Department of the Interior and the Department of Health and Human Services in collaboration with state regulatory agencies, officials said.

The Pacific Flyway includes Alaska, Western Canada and the West Coast of the United States including Washington.

There is concern that the seasonal migration of birds will bring the pathogenic Eurasian H5N1 avian flu into this region of the world through the Pacific Flyway.

The current validated protocol for verification of a pathogenic influenza strain requires performing an initial PCR (polymerase chain reaction) to determine the existence of matrix protein gene, which is common to all influenza A infections, officials said.

If matrix protein is present, then a successive PCR for hemagglutinin is performed to determine if the H5 gene is also present.

While this part of the procedure can be completed quickly, verification and further typing after a positive result requires that the sample be cultured and sequenced, necessitating roughly another week or more to complete.

CombiMatrix's influenza monitoring system has shown in laboratory tests that it can confirm and type the infection in four hours, officials said.

The company said its goal in this study is to demonstrate that its system produces quick virus typing results in the diagnostic laboratory environment that correlate to the standard protocol.

"Our Influenza Surveillance Technology has been validated in our laboratory in collaboration with the World Health Organization. We now seek to validate the system in the field in collaboration with [Washington animal laboratory]," Amit Kumar, president and chief executive officer of CombiMatrix, said in the release.

The Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory is a publicly supported laboratory located in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Washington State University.

Acacia, based in Newport Beach, Calif., comprises two operating groups, Acacia Technologies group and CombiMatrix group. CombiMatrix is developing a platform technology to rapidly produce customizable arrays, which are semiconductor-based tools for use in identifying and determining the roles of genes, gene mutations and proteins.

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