Key points from article :
Torus Biosystems developed the Synestia system, a point of care diagnostic tool for infectious disease.
Recently attracted $25 million in financing.
Shawn Marcell, CEO of Torus Biosystems, explains about infectious diseases and the Synestia system.
- The WHO reports that globally over 17 million people die each year due to infectious diseases.
- Traditionally, infectious pathogens are identified through culturing and an additional antimicrobial susceptibility test.
- This waiting game results in inappropriate use of antibiotics and suboptimal patient outcomes.
- The Torus Synestia System works by integrating convection-based qPCR and proprietary toehold probes.
- When a specimen is introduced, pathogen cells are lysed, DNA/RNA is extracted, purified, and presented in the reaction chamber.
- For each sample, over 1000 targets can be detected in under 30 minutes.
- Can detect any pathogen as long as there is a nucleic acid sequence available that uniquely identifies it.
