Xenobiotic gets patent approval for toxin detection

Jun 17 2004

Xenobiotic Detection Systems, Inc. has announced that their most recent patent application (number US 6,720,431 B2) has been approved.

XDS consultant (and former XDS laboratory director) Michael Chu and President George Clark combined their research skills to develop a rapid and relatively inexpensive methodology to quantify TEQs (Toxic Equivalence -- measures of toxicity adopted by the World Health Organization) for individual toxic chemical groups.

Many of the world's most harmful environmental toxins can be characterized into compounds called polyhalogenated diaromatic hydrocarbons (PHDH). These compounds include polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB), polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDF), polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDD), polybrominated biphenyls (PBB), and a number of other subclasses of PHDH. Exposure to and bioaccumulation of PHDH in tissues have been observed to produce a number of harmful effects including tumor production, birth defects, and death.

Based upon the previous CALUX(R) By XDS patent (US Patent 5,854,010), Chu and Clark have developed a method for separating the PHDH TEQs of the polychlorinated dioxin/furan (PCDD and PCDF) subgroup from the TEQs of the polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) compounds and reporting these results separately. This new method is a major step forward in toxin detection as it allows for multiple analysis results from one PHDH laboratory sample. This saves time and is extremely cost efficient for both research and general public applications.

The new process also provides a method for eliminating compounds that are not of the PHDH chemical group. "We are delighted to receive this validation of our research and methods of analysis," stated Clark. "Using this method with our XDS CALUX(R) bioassay, it is now possible to collect timely, sensitive, accurate, and detailed information of specific toxic compounds in our environment."

Founded in 1995, XDS technology was pioneered by Clark and Dr. Michael Denison, a toxicologist at the University of California at Davis. The CALUX(R) By XDS bioassay contains mammalian cell lines genetically engineered to include the gene for luciferase, an enzyme fireflies use to produce light. In the patented XDS CALUX(R) process, firefly light is produced when dioxin-like chemicals are present. The process provides recognition of dioxin and dioxin-like compounds at detection levels below one part per trillion, and is 40% to 70% less expensive than traditional analyses.

Development of the XDS CALUX(R) technology was supported by Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants (1R43 ES08327-01 & 2R44 ES08372-02) from the National Institute of Health.

For more information: Call 1-888-D-I-O-X-I-N-S or visit http://www.dioxins.com .