Qld firm 'days away' from SARS test

A Queensland biotech recently involved in a TV-driven stoush with defence scientists over anthrax-detecting equipment says it is days away from a working, non-invasive SARS test.

Élan Bio managing director, Colin Salmond, said the company was using its expertise in the use of electromagnetic spectroscopy to undertake research into a test that could identify the virus.

Although no decision had yet been made about what kind of approach would be pursued, it is likely the test will use straightforward surface tests, with a totally non-invasive approach.

"We are only a few days away from proof tests that show we can identify the coronavirus," he said. "We are talking to a major US company and will be looking at a combined detection/preventative approach to the problem.

"Once we have done that we could test it on the real thing -- we know they have samples at the Animal Health Labs in Geelong. But we didn't want to do that first because it would mean losing access to our equipment," he asserted.

Salmond claimed the company was very close to being able to test for SARS, and said it had the basic capability right now. "But we don't want to say we can, or to release anything until we have absolute evidence," he asserted.

If the trials go according to plan, Élan intends to produce the SARS devices at a cost of somewhere around "a few hundred dollars".

Élan Bio has been in the news over its ongoing attempts to persuade the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) to run an anthrax-detecting trial using the company's technology.

"We have been negotiating with them for over a year to run a demo, but the time lag we have experienced has been distressing," noted Salmond.

However, after a segment on a TV science program, the DSTO has agreed to an "imminent demo" he said.

"Even Dr Ian Chessell, the DSTO chief scientist, is disappointed at the delay," he said. "It's been an endless question, trial, question, trial process."

Salmond said his technology, which uses spectroscopy-based techniques, was much faster and easier than conventional techniques, and was non-invasive too.

"We can detect down to 300 micrograms of a substance inside an envelope. That is way ahead of what they asked us to prove," he added.

Disaster blaster

What better way to rise above a problem than to cure it? Faced with financial disaster, the then strawberry and potato farmer Colin Salmond and partner Peter McGruddy began an investigation that would lead to a "one-in-trillions" discovery they claim literally unlocked the secrets of nature.

Following a particularly bad harvest -- 30 per cent of the crop was lost -- they embarked on a research project to discover if the potential vigour of a crop could be estimated from analysing the seeds.

The research showed that a particular wavelength of light could measure and predict the growth and potential yield of agricultural crops. This principle has now been extended and refined, and applied to a range of applications in agriculture, human medicine, plant sciences and genetics.