The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has awarded one year, $250,155 contract to Quanterix to develop an assay to detect single molecules of botulinum toxin (BoNT) within complex environmental samples.
Quanterix has entered into a collabortion agreement with Botulinum Research Center (BRC) to develop and validate assay to measure low levels of the BoNT agent.
Quanterix Research vice president David Duffy said the 1,000-fold increase in sensitivity enabled by Single Molecule Array (SiMoA) will facilitate the direct detection of the toxins produced by active bacteria at much lower levels.
"As a result, the detection of BoNT protein will provide important functional information on the presence of bacteria that complements nucleic acid identification," Duffy said.