Salt Lake City, Utah - AnzenBio recently announced that the company is the winner in the Biotechnology category for the third annual Stoel Rives Utah Innovation Awards. AnzenBio garnered the award for its Bio Detector, a portable, handheld device for on-site detection of bacteria, viruses, molds, nucleic acids, mycotoxins and biotoxins.
A committee of more than 50 experts from private industry, government and higher education selected AnzenBio's Bio Detector as the winner in the state's Biotechnology sector from a formidable field of entrants. The AnzenBio award was announced at a recent ceremony at the University of Utah, in conjunction with the Edison Conference, a networking and funding event for Utah inventors and entrepreneurs.
The AnzenBio Bio Detector electrochemical pathogen detection system consists of a portable, 30-ounce hand-held electrochemical detector, used in conjunction with proprietary AnzenBio bio-sensor chips that have been impregnated with an anti-body assay that targets a specific pathogen.
The Bio Detector is a uniquely flexible bio-pathogen detection system. "The versatility of the AnzenBio pathogen detection technology, coupled with its high level of cost-effectiveness, portability, target specificity and time-efficiency, makes it ideal for a wide range of vital applications," said AnzenBio chairman and CEO Gary Crocker. In contrast with competing alternatives in the pathogen detection marketplace, AnzenBio's solution is able to detect not only nucleic acid-based agents, but also protein-based toxins--such as ricin and a variety of toxins from staph bacteria--that are otherwise extremely difficult to detect.
AnzenBio is currently introducing the Bio Detector in the agricultural and environmental/industrial hygiene markets for detection of toxins, pathogens and mycotoxins related to bacteria, mold, fungus and allergens. The technology is equally applicable for military and homeland security purposes, for routine scientific research in academic, government and commercial settings, and many other industries.
The lightweight and rugged design of the Bio Detector make it fully field deployable--a critical factor in many situations that require rapid results, such as food supply analysis, natural disasters, health crises and epidemics, bio-terror attacks, and other circumstances where significant financial resources, or even lives, may depend on immediate and accurate identification of chemical and biological agents.
The Bio Detector's ease of use enables non-specialists, including many civilian and military first responders, to be trained to effectively detect and respond to biological agents. The AnzenBio system is also quantitative, allowing users to identify and analyze the presence and concentration of a particular pathogen with a high degree of specificity, rather than simply ascertaining the presence or absence of that agent.
"AnzenBio's Bio Detector is a creative solution to a set of very complex problems," said Dr. Michael A. Keene, director of Utah's Centers of Excellence program and former state science advisor, who served on the 2005 selection committee. "This has extraordinary market potential, and may well change the face of a number of important industries, including pathogen detection and DNA amplification and analysis."
"It represents a great accomplishment to win the biotechnology award for 2005," added Kevin Laurence, organizer of the Utah Innovation Awards. "This was an exceptional year for biotech in the state, featuring clearly our strongest field of entrants to date." The 2004 Biotechnology category winner was ARUP Laboratories (Associated Regional and University Pathologists), a leading esoteric clinical diagnostics national laboratory where Crocker recently served as chairman of the board.
The statewide Utah Innovation Awards were developed jointly by the business law firm Stoel Rives LLP and Digital iQ magazine, in conjunction with the Utah Engineering Experiment Station. The program was also co-sponsored by the Utah Information Technology Association (UITA), with support from MountainWest Capital Network and the Utah Life Science Association (ULSA).
