Published May 2003

CombiMatrix creates
SARS biochip

By Eric Fetters
Herald Business Writer

CombiMatrix Corp. has created DNA chips that could be used to test patients for the virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome, or by researchers to develop a possible cure.

The Mukilteo-based company created the biochips within 48 hours after scientists published the genetic makeup of the coronavirus responsible for SARS, which sickened more than 4,300 people and killed more than 250 worldwide.

A coronavirus is the same type of virus that causes the common cold. In April, the World Health Organization said it had confirmed that the same coronavirus identified earlier by scientists caused SARS symptoms in animals.

“This is technology we’ve developed over the past four or five years,” said Ali Arjomand, a senior scientist at CombiMatrix. “We’re able to make anything at anytime. So it was fairly easy for us to ask our software to look at this new genome and build a chip around it.”

CombiMatrix scientists said they think their SARS chip is the first created by a biotech lab.

In the past, the company has used the same technology to create semiconductor chips that use antibodies to detect biological warfare agents. Its chips also are used by scientists in genetic research and drug discovery labs.

The SARS chip can be used to confirm the link between the coronavirus and illness. It also could be used to test patients suspected of having SARS, Arjomand said.

“The virus itself or extracts of the virus would be applied to the chip,” he said, “and because of the very specific interactions of the DNA on the chip to the virus, you’ll get a positive reaction on the chip.”

Samples from patients who fear they have the virus could be tested in that way to make sure. Over the long term, SARS chips could be useful in research for a cure, Arjomand added.

Bret Undem, spokesman for CombiMatrix’s parent company, Acacia Research, said large clinical laboratories already have begun inquiring about purchasing SARS chips.

The biochips based on the SARS coronavirus come on the heels of a concerted scientific effort to understand the fast-spreading disease. It took researchers at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and a Canadian labor just 31 days to sequence the coronavirus.

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