Innovation > Innovation
BIORANGER
R/GA, New York / DIAGENETIX / 2015
Awards:
Overview
Credits
Overview
ClientBriefOrObjective
Five years ago, the Diagenetix co-founders began developing a testing platform for farmers and food producers. It builds upon the latest innovations in molecular diagnostics and mobile computing. Over the course of this time multiple prototypes were developed and tested in the field with grants from the US government. These funds were and continue to be provided to help develop a test solution for farmers to minimize the spread of plant diseases and foodborne pathogens that are a threat to not just their livelihood but also our health.
Today, our team of designers, programmers, biosensor engineers, data scientists, and molecular biologists have helped put over fifty units in customers’ hands. And we are piloting trials with some of the largest food producers and distributors in the world. This year we will not only be helping food producers test for plant diseases and foodborne pathogens, but will also help customers tackle food fraud, better understand spoilage, and optimize their fermentation of foods.
Our base testing platform is commercially available, but we are building upon its value by improving usability, expanding our analytics dashboard, and developing an analytics layer. The analytics layer is particularly exciting. It will not only helps producers know where their positives tests were but will also forecast where they will be both spatially and temporally. For the first time food producers will be empowered to be proactive instead of reactive in controlling their microbial contamination and diseases.
Implementation
Our diagnostic platform blends innovations developed internally and leverages innovations from other industries to enable farmers and food producers to quickly and accurately identify contamination and minimize the spread. Because of its low cost and portability testing now can be conducted throughout the supply chain, helping large growers, processors, and buyers manage their microbial contamination.
The platform is composed of four components, the first two of which are inventive and the latter two are innovative. The first is the chemical reaction kits that is composed of our patent-pending molecular probe technology and enables the DNA amplification of the target gene-marker, indicative of a particular disease or contaminant. Second, is our patent-pending handheld hardware that hosts the chemical reaction and reads the raw test results. Third is the Android based app that controls the hardware and displays the test result. The fourth component is the cloud-based data layer that is still under development. The data layer compiles test results from disparate locations, summarizes the results, and then also is capable of forecasting where diseases are spreading.
We are selling our base platform currently to food producers and research throughout the world and piloting out data platform with one of the largest wine producers in the world.
Our research and development has been backed by over $1 million in grants. We recently received a seed round of financing. These funds are being used to help us see through our vision of one testing platform that helps food producers know and forecast their microbial contamination throughout the supply chain, helping create a more productive and safe food supply.
Outcome
We believe there is an entire microbial world that only the tip of the iceberg has been revealed and understood. Our goal is to build a platform that will help producers not just understand plant diseases and foodborne pathogens, but will be positioned to also help them better understand all the microorganisms from the soil all the way to the kitchen that aren’t currently characterized. By helping the food and agricultural industries more about this world, we believe we can help them be more productive and efficient and ultimately help them feed our world’s growing population.
Currently, our customers include academic researchers, federal agencies, and some of the largest food producers in the world that impact the growing on over 200 million acres world-wide. This year we will expand with our customers throughout the world and supply chain.
Our mission and vision is to help every farmer and food producer and distributor test for anything throughout their operations, thereby helping create a more abundant, secure, and safe food supply.
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