Huntsville, Alabama: GeneCapture, a Huntsville, Alabama company developing a one hour rapid diagnostic and follow-on antibiotic susceptibility platform for on-site management of infectious pathogens, announces a contract award of $2.5 Million from the U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Threat Reduction Agency to continue the development of rapid pathogen detection in austere environments for warfighter and civilian health. The contract also supports the development of a solution to identify Pathogen X, in which an unknown pathogen must be characterized quickly. GeneCapture’s point of care solution will identify which viral family is present in the sample within an hour so that rapid countermeasures can be taken.

HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA – GeneCapture, an emerging Point-of-Care infection diagnostics company, has been awarded a contract funded by the U.S. Army and managed by the Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium (MTEC) to address a capability gap in soldier health and readiness. The $1 million contract adds invasive fungal pathogen probes to the current bacterial and viral panel, enhancing its platform capabilities in identifying and treating complex infections. Wound infections are often caused by multiple pathogens, with invasive fungal infections generally being the hardest to diagnose and treat.

HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA – GeneCapture, developer of a novel point of care pathogen diagnostic platform technology, announced that it has received a Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) match grant award from Innovate Alabama to advance its work currently underway with the Defense Health Agency. The current SBIR effort is to develop a portable rapid diagnostic for human infection and antibiotic susceptibility testing for military personnel. The matching grant of $100,000 will enable animal pathogens to be added to the test panel.

HUNTSVILLE, AL – GeneCapture, developer of a novel point of care pathogen diagnostic platform technology, has

been awarded the prestigious Nunn-Perry Award from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Office of Small Business

Programs (OSBP). The Mentor Protégé Program is designed to assist small businesses with technical and organizational

skills to prepare for DoD contracting.

Paula Millirons is the chief scientist at GeneCapture Inc. in Huntsville and co-inventor of the CAPTURE rapid protocol. CAPTURE is a technology that can be used at clinics, field hospitals and other “points of care” to quickly detect infections.

GeneCapture is developing technology that can quickly identify pathogens, which are germs that cause disease. Then, they pair the pathogen with a companion test that determines which antibiotics will fight it.

GeneCapture, a resident associate company on the campus of HudsonAlpha, has won contracts from two Department of Defense agencies to prepare its portable rapid pathogen detection technology for independent and in-field testing. These new awards bring GeneCapture’s total awards from the DOD up to $5.5 Million.

GeneCapture, Inc. has some great news to share! We are excited to provide wound pathogen detection and antibiotic susceptibility testing for the Defense Health Agency alongside our subcontractor, Canvas, Inc. See the Press Release for more details.

Soon it could only take an hour to find out what pathogen is making you ill, following the successful demonstration of the world's first multi-pathogen identification using non-amplified RNA detection by GeneCapture, a company cofounded by researchers at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of the University of Alabama System.

GeneCapture has been selected a finalist in the xTechSearch competition which resulted in a cash prize of $120,000, a spot in the xTechSearch Accelerator and an opportunity to demonstrate its products at the AUSA convention in Washington DC in October 2020.

https://www.afsbirsttr.af.mil/News-Events/Videos/videoid/750432/dvpcc/false/#DVIDSVideoPlayer13316

The GeneCapture Team attended the 2020 Southeast Branch (SEB) meeting of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) held at The University of Alabama in Huntsville February 21-23.

Chief Scientist and Principal Investigator Paula Koelle, presented the company’s engineering progress towards a novel, fully integrated sample prep module as part of the rapid pathogen identification cartridge.

Eight women from around world who work in various science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields toured toured HudsonAlpha through a U.S. Department of State program known as "Hidden No More International Visitor Leadership Program".

Peggy Sammon, CEO, presented its rapid portable infection detection system to experts at the Tech Connect conference in Washington DC.

Chief Scientist Paula Koelle joined the AdvaMedDx CDC Visit Focused on Barriers to Patient Access discussion regarding diagnostic testing policies. The purpose of the discussion was to bring the voice of commercial companies to the CDC.

CEO Peggy Sammon was invited to participate on a panel at AFITC presenting to small businesses about the SBIR/STTR programs and the importance of researching specific user needs identified as seeking new solutions. GeneCapture has won SBIR and STTR contracts.

MGMWERX invited GeneCapture to host a seminar on new developments in rapid infection diagnostics for the Warfighter. MGMWERX supports the Air Force by connecting its users with new technologies from commercial or other sectors.

Peggy Sammon, CEO, joined the State Trade Delegation sponsored by the Commerce Department and Economic Development Partnership of Alabama (EDPA) to explore life sciences trade options in Ireland and the UK.

Huntsville, Ala. – GeneCapture, a resident associate company at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, has named Greg Thompson its Chief Operating Officer (COO) to oversee the product design, commercialization and medical device approvals for the company’s breakthrough portable rapid infection diagnostic targeted to the point of care market.