HOUSTON, March 5, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- LaserGen, Inc. today announced receiving a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the United States Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC). The award will support research efforts to demonstrate the feasibility of using the Company's next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology to identify microbes commonly found in wound infections in combat soldiers.
LaserGen unveiled its NGS system at the Advances in Genome Biology and Technology meeting in Marco Island, FL (www.agbt.org) last month. The Company demonstrated highly accurate sequencing of the E. coli genome using its breakthrough sequencing chemistry, Lightning Terminators™. "This important milestone illustrates not only the superior accuracy of the system, but also the lower cost it enables by reducing informatics needs and validation efforts," said Dr. Michael Metzker, Chief Executive Officer of LaserGen. "The field technology being developed for the US Army is only one of many potential applications of the LaserGen approach."
The long-term goal of the USAMRMC solicitation is to develop a rapid, portable approach to identify pathogenic occupants of a wound site so that a specific antibiotic treatment may be applied. This therapeutic approach would obviate the current practice of broad spectrum antibiotic use, which has been linked to the emergence of multidrug resistant (MDR) bacteria. Coupled with its proprietary imaging technology, LaserGen's NGS chemistry is expected to lead to more effective therapeutic treatment of infected wounds and a reduction in the frequency of MDR bacteria. "We are excited that our technology has been chosen as having potential for addressing this global issue," said Metzker.
About LaserGen
LaserGen, Inc. (www.lasergen.com), based in Houston, TX, is an early-stage biotechnology company launching its proprietary, reversible terminator reagent set to improve primary read accuracy over that of existing NGS technologies. In 2010, LaserGen was named one of the "Most Promising" companies at the 9th Annual Life Science Venture Forum hosted by the Rice Alliance for Technology & Entrepreneurship at Rice University.
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USAMRMC disclosure: The SBIR grant is supported by the USAMRMC under Contract No. W81XWH-12-C-0061. The views, opinions, and/or findings contained within are those of LaserGen and should not be construed as an official Department of the Army position, policy or decision unless so designated by other documentation.