Specific Diagnostics

www.specificdx.com

Founded in Mountain View California in 2011, Specific Diagnostics is transforming microbiology diagnostics with novel metabolomic methods to detect and characterize infection and to rapidly and inexpensively determine antibiotic efficacy, bringing new efficiency and speed to clinical microbiology labs.

The Company’s technology, based on inexpensive printed arrays of chemical sensor inks, sense the volatile (small molecule) emissions produced by all microorganisms during their growth. These complex emission patterns captured by the Company’s sensors are species- and even strain-specific (hence the Company name), and thus furnish a novel means of strain differentiation. The opportunity to better understand the nature of this strain profile by comparison with the genomic profiles of pathogen strain is one rationale for having established an office at the BioData Innovation Centre (BIC), and has already prompted interesting collaborations with group leaders on Campus. Since taking residence, we’ve gone beyond that scientific nexus to develop plans to bring rapid and low-cost pathogen WGS to our clinical customers, a translational opportunity that has arisen as a direct result of our joining the Campus. In short, the value of locating at the BIC has met and then far exceeded our expectations.