Aptamer-Enhanced Biorecognition Reagent System

"OmniSite BioDiagnostics, Inc. (OmniSite) proposes to develop DNA Aptamers to Bacillus anthracis (nonpathogenic Sterne strain) spores and staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB) by the SELEX process. Aptamers are less expensive than antibodies to produce, do notrequire animal hosts for production, can be protected from nucleases, and used in a variety of assay formats to replace antibodies. In Phase I, OmniSite will compare three different detection technologies using aptamers to the two targets; 1)aptamer-electrochemiluminescence (ECL using a borrowed Origen analyzer from IGEN, Inc.), 2) aptamer-fluorescence polarization (FP using OmniSite's breadboard reader), and 3) aptamer-fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET using a standardspectrofluorometer). At the conclusion of Phase I, OmniSite will downselect to one detection technology based on sensitivity data, assay performance, and ease of military field use. OmniSite's CTO and principal investigator, Dr. John Bruno is a recognizedaptamer developer and innovator with numerous peer-reviewed publications in the areas of aptamers, ECL, and FRET as well as ample recent experience and SBIR awards involving aptamers and FP analysis. In Phase II, OmniSite will clone and sequence theaptamers as well as optimize and package the selected assays for facile field use with an off-the-shelf version of the chosen detector technology. The fusion of SELEX DNA Aptamer assay technology with the propos