Located on the campus of the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in Huntsville, Alabama, a young startup company’s 15 employees are fervently working to develop the next generation of tools to rapidly diagnose and characterize emerging pathogens without reliance on a laboratory. GeneCapture, Inc. (www.genecapture.com) has been using their novel nucleic acid capture device to study over 40 pathogens that are important causes of human and animal disease. GeneCapture’s Chief Executive Officer, Peggy Sammon, sees many applications for their technology, “We are working closely with a number of clinicians, government agencies and investors to bring these diagnostics to market, whether for use in clinics, hospitals, or on the battlefield or farms. Our goal is to provide a portable 1-hour device for detecting emerging pathogens, followed by a rapid antimicrobial susceptibility test. “Having collaborated with Professor Gray (UTMB) for nearly six years, Gene Capture has recently made considerable progress in detecting novel influenza viruses and coronaviruses with their easy-to-use device.”
UTMB One Health Research and Training Laboratory and GeneCapture, Inc. have been working together since 2023 (here been working for about 2 years) when they were awarded USDA funding to develop diagnostics to detect novel coronaviruses and influenza viruses. Early work on GeneCapture’s prototypic device in their laboratories showed that the device successfully detected an array of human and animal influenza viruses and coronaviruses. The goal is to optimize the device to detect and characterize such viruses in field settings such as livestock farms or rural human health clinics in less than an hour. In collaboration with UTMB, GeneCapture’s Chief Scientist, Paula Millirons, expects to be able to field test the device in US farms in late 2026. When asked about progress Paula noted “Thus far our Capture Platform has been able to clearly detect and distinguish influenza A virus, influenza B virus, influenza D virus, and all four major groups of coronaviruses (alpha, beta, gamma and delta).” “Next we plan to visit farms with UTMB researchers to learn if the device works as well in the field.”