The
appearance of the previously unidentified SARS virus in 2002, the
current concerns of pathogenic strains of the Avian flu virus and even
the identification of HIV as the causative agent of AIDS back in 1985
highlight the fact that there is still a lack of understanding as to
the numbers, nature, epidimiology and identification of emerging and
undiscovered pathogenic organisms. While those that are of major
concern are pathogenic for humans the identification of agents which
may devastate commercially sensitive livestock or arable crops should
be of equal importance.
There
are many technologies available that are able to quickly identify with
good sensitivity and specificity known organisms and their derived
markers, usually proteins or DNA. There are however, very few
technologies or assays that are able to identify markers which have not
been previously identified.
Pastel has, through its bioinformatics, shown that if InVenio™
Technology had been available in 2002 it would have been able to detect
at least one of the SARS proteins through a unique signature or
fingerprint not found in any other human protein. Pastel has also
extended this by creating random protein sequences, almost all of which
would be identifiable with InVenio™
Technology.
