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Disease Diagnosis for All

Sunday, 17 April 2005

DiagnovIS, a recently established Cambridge start-up company, promises an inexpensive diagnostic tool with the potential to cure millions. The business idea sprang out of a research project headed by Dr Charles Pritchard and Dr David Rubin at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. At the time Nic Ross, a student of Dr Pritchard, was developing software algorithms that examine tissues under a digital microscope and then screen them for malaria. This technology is the basis of the business. The integrated, automated, diagnostic platform makes use of advances in computational mathematics, digital imaging, automated electron microscopy and proprietary optical recognition software.

DiagnovIS has recently designed an innovative hardware unit, through participation in the IfM Design Challenge, as well as through inputs from Cambridge-based technology consultants, and a local microscopy developer. The platform is currently being tested on a model system of four different strains of malaria, and is almost ready for phase one clinical trials. In parallel, the method is being developed for the diagnosis of a wide range of infectious and parasitic diseases, including tuberculosis and STDs. DiagnovIS was founded in 2004 by Pritchard, Ross, Sonja Marjanovic and Ilian Iliev, after they entered the 2003 Cambridge University Entrepreneurs business plan competition, sponsored by The Cambridge-MIT Institute. They won the �People, Planet and Productivity� category, and the prize money was used as start-up funding. Since then they have gone from strength to strength. The company�s next aims will be to secure further financial backing for broadening the disease software portfolio, and hardware development. BP

www.diagnovis.com

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