Detect and Protect

The emerging concept of “bio-radar” requires integrated capabilities to detect, prevent, and respond to biological threats beginning with a global infrastructure to monitor for pathogenic and other materials and provide an early warning of anomalous events at the moment they arise.  Uniquely vulnerable settings such as healthcare facilities, schools, and enclosed conveyances also represent key sentinel sites to collect structured surveillance data needed for protective “bio-radar.”

Facilities either prone to viral or bacteriological exposures, or engaged in activity with high risk of transmission and/or exposure, are a ready market for AptAvian™ detection and surveillance capabilities, including a range of industries facing continuous operational and regulatory requirements to control for—and provide security against—pathogens, chemical contaminants, and other invasive microbial and particulate threats.   For example, just the two most recent avian flu pandemics (2014/15 and 2022/23) cost the poultry industry $3.3 billion and more than $1 billion, and government $1 billion and $667 million for indemnification and cleanup, respectively.  

Business and regulatory factors generating demand in both animal and human system operations for accurate and affordable AptAvian™ threat detection and response products to protect the bottom line include (but are not limited to):

Continuity of Operations

Loss Prevention

Biosecurity and Threat Monitoring

Regulatory and Permit Compliance and Support

LEED Certification or other facility operation standards

Aptagenic™ products and services can be used separately in facilities or integrated into existing air-handling systems.  Data collection can be integrated into public health monitoring systems, creating opportunities for partnerships with both commercial and official users of aptagenic™ systems.  

Owing to the high binding affinity and selectivity of an aptamer to its target, aptagenic™ technologies provide some of the most agile and affordable options for addressing the accelerated transmission and spread of pathogenic threats and disease already evidenced in human and animal health today. 

Although relatively new to the field of disease and pandemic management, aptagenic™ technologies are a preferred response method for several reasons: 

Aptamers can be engineered for both detection, prevention, and therapeutic applications, enabling multiple response capabilities to address pathogens and disease

Because field conditions can be replicated, aptamers are more readily generated in laboratory conditions to provide agile response as airborne viruses and bacteria evolve to more infectious forms

Detection results from aptagenic™ technologies are faster, and go beyond binary results to quantify pathogenic concentration, providing higher degrees of data quality and use in monitoring and predictive analytics regarding exposure and risk 

Applications of aptamer technology have made great strides since first being discovered in the 1990s but remains less known than other technological and medical processes for addressing biosecurity (including threat detection, monitoring, targeting and reduction) and therapeutic interventions. Until recently, testing assays traditionally had been conducted in centralized laboratories with a large footprint, fragile and/or expensive equipment (centrifuges, vortexers, thermocyclers, microscopes, incubators, external power supplies, etc.), and highly trained technicians, all of which added cost and time to generating results.  The future holds more and promising uses of aptagenics™ to provide: 

Simultaneous detection of multiple pathogens using low cost, durable equipment at the point-of-care that deliver rigorous and actionable differentiation capability (including Differentiation between Infected and Vaccinated Animals or DIVA) 

New insights that enable new product designs to stop or reverse the effects of disease;

Testing of molecular compounds to find possible beneficial effects against any of a large number of diseases; and 

New ways to target medical products to specific sites within the body or to manipulate genetic material.