See us at the 25th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID)

Molecular diagnostics (MDx) company Genetic Signatures will exhibit and present scientific data at the 25th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID), which will be held on 25 – 28 April 2015 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Dr Doug Millar, Genetic Signatures Chief Scientific Officer, will present a scientific poster titled “Comparison of the Efficiency Of Commercially Available Automated Nucleic Acid Extraction Platforms to Detect a Wide Range of Respiratory Viruses”.

Genetic Signatures will also exhibit their EasyScreen products for the detection of infectious diseases, including kits for diagnosing bacterial, viral and protazoan causes of gastroenteritis direct from faeces, and viral causes of respiratory infection from swabs transported in Viral Transport Media (VTM).

The EasyScreen™ Respiratory Virus Detection Kit leverages the company’s proprietary MDx 3Base™ platform technology. The Kit simultaneously identifies 15 of the most common respiratory viral infections and contains the necessary reagents to detect multiple viral gene targets, allowing rapid screening of a large number of viral pathogens. The respiratory multiplex assay is initially available in research use form.

Visit Genetic Signatures at Booth B6-329 at ECCMID2015 for more information.

About Genetic Signatures Limited: Genetic Signatures is a specialist molecular diagnostics (MDx) company focused on the development and commercialisation of its proprietary platform technology, 3Base™. Founded in 2001 by the late Dr Geoffrey Grigg, the former Chief of Molecular Biology at CSIRO, Genetic Signatures has released a suite of real-time Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) based products for the routine detection of infectious diseases under the EasyScreen™ brand. MDx is a modern technique increasingly used by hospitals and pathology laboratories to detect specific sequences of the genome, the DNA or RNA that define an organism. Genetic Signatures’ proprietary MDx 3Base™ platform technology provides high-volume hospital and pathology laboratories the ability to screen for a wide array of infectious pathogens, with a high degree of specificity, in a rapid throughput (time-to-result) environment. Genetic Signatures’ current target markets are major hospital and pathology laboratories undertaking infectious disease screening. As the spread of infectious diseases around the world continues to grow, the Company plans to launch additional products for the detection of pathogens associated with MRSA, sexual health infections, tuberculosis and meningitis.

About ECCMID: The 25th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) is one of the largest European Infectious diseases meetings. The congress provides a forum for delegates to update their knowledge and learn about the latest innovations in the field of infectious diseases and clinical microbiology.

About Gastroenteritis: Gastroenteritis is a widespread clinical problem and it has been estimated there are 17.2 million gastroenteritis cases each year in Australia resulting in 250,000 visits to hospital emergency departments, 15,000 hospitalisations and 80 deaths[1]. Every year there are almost 1.7 billion cases of diarrhoeal disease worldwide, responsible for the deaths of approximately 760,000 children under five years of age[2].

About Viral Respiratory Infections: According to the World Health Organisation, respiratory viral infections are responsible for the deaths of an estimated 3.9 million people per year, and are one of the top five causes of mortality worldwide particularly in children, the elderly and immunocompromised persons. In addition to increasing the risk of secondary bacterial infections, respiratory viruses cause an enormous burden to health systems by way of direct medical expenses and indirect productivity losses[3]. Rapid identification of viral respiratory infections is critical in initiating antiviral treatment and limiting the spread of the infection.

[1] Australian Government Department of Health and Aging, “The Annual Cost of Food borne illness in Australia, March 2006
[2] World Health Organization, Diarrhoeal disease, Fact sheet no. 330, April 2013
[3] World Health Organisation (2015), Battle against Respiratory Viruses (BRaVe) initiative http://www.who.int/influenza/patient_care/clinical/brave/en/