12 October 2004

New technology helps Norwich scientists fight killer bug

Genetic research tool to be showcased at DTI's Living Innovation event on October 12, Sefton Park, Liverpool

Ground-breaking technology is helping the Norwich-based Institute of Food Research (IFR) to combat a common cause of food-poisoning responsible for more than 100 deaths in the UK every year.

A genetic research tool, DNA microarray technology, is being used in a revolutionary way by pioneering scientists at IFR to take the world's first snapshot of infection by food poisoning bacteria. New software from Cambridge-based bioinformatics company BlueGnome is helping the researchers to discover how bacteria cause disease. The technology is to be featured at the DTI's Living Innovation event, staged to give businesses an opportunity to learn from experts in innovation techniques.

Salmonella typhimurium costs the British economy £1 billion annually. Its resistance to antibiotics has increased at such an alarming rate that it now kills more people in the west than any other food-born pathogen.

Scientists at IFR have been studying how Salmonella survives in the body. Using DNA microarrays, they were the first in the world to identify which Salmonella genes are activated during an infection. These insights could pave the way for a vaccine capable of eliminating the disease from farm animals.

Their work - considered by the academic community to be as important as early work by Edward Jenner and Louis Pasteur - is being assisted by BlueGnome's new technology, christened BlueFuse for Microarrays.

By using statistical modelling techniques for analysing genetic data, BlueFuse has made the initial stages of the investigation faster - potentially saving six months of a scientist's time every year - while improving accuracy of results and reducing the tedium of much of the analysis.

DNA microarrays are glass slides on which all the genes in an organism are represented by a pattern of minute dots, each one representing a different gene. The slides are then washed with a marker that differentially colours the genes activated in an infection.

Before BlueFuse, researchers had to manually examine each spot to make a judgement about whether the gene was switched on or not.

BlueFuse not only automates this visual inspection, saving scientists months of eye-straining work at the computer screen, it also uses statistical modelling techniques to assign a confidence rating to each feature it assesses, giving scientists the ability to come to reliable conclusions more quickly and cost-effectively than ever before.

"Examining each slide by eye and eliminating features that were caused by the washing process, dust or hairs could take two hours and gave our researchers headaches," said Dr Jay Hinton, Head of the world-leading IFR Microarray Facility. "With BlueFuse, this process is done automatically in 20 minutes."

Dr Hinton said the growing resistance of the Salmonella organism to antibiotics had increased the urgency of efforts to determine how the bacteria cause disease.

"An effective way to eliminate Salmonella food-poisoning is to vaccinate farm animals. This would be a major advance for world science and we are making progress towards that goal using BlueFuse.

"BlueFuse enables our computers to analyse three times more microarrays per day. Last year, we used some 3000 microarrays in the Institute of Food Research. We estimate that BlueFuse would have saved us six months of a scientist's time, two months in my laboratory alone.

"It has also given a boost to staff morale. No longer has someone got to sit for hours in front of a computer to find the spots on the microarrays."

BlueGnome CEO Nick Haan said: "We are delighted that the Institute of Food Research is using BlueFuse for such an important purpose and we hope its research proves successful.

"With more and more diseases becoming resistant to antibiotics, the use of genetic research in discovering new drugs to protect people is crucial."

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For media enquiries about BlueFuse for Microarrays at BlueGnome: Please contact Rachel Holdsworth/ Geoff Pulham, tel: 01954 202789,
e-mail: rachel@holdsworth-associates.co.uk

For media enquiries about IFR research, images and to arrange an interview with Dr Jay Hinton, please contact Zoe Dunford, IFR Communications, tel: 01603 255111, e-mail: zoe.dunford@ifr.ac.uk.

Notes to editors:

BlueGnome www.bluegnome.co.uk,

BlueGnome,has pioneered the use of statistical signal modelling in the analysis of high throughput experimental data. Its product BlueFuse for Microarrays uses statistical modelling techniques to eliminate 'noise' generated in microarray experiments, enabling researchers to automatically identify the presence or absence of genes and proteins with a higher level of confidence than is currently possible.

BlueFuse uses Bayesian statistics, well proven in other fields such as speech recognition, in combination with its own proprietary technology to bring a completely-new approach to the processing of biotechnology data. The ability to automate this analysis will remove the cost, error and delay of manual intervention and enable drug discovery companies to base crucial commercial decisions on a far broader range of data than is currently possible.

Institute of Food Research (IFR) www.ifr.ac.uk

The IFR was set up to carry out independent, basic and strategic research into food safety, quality, nutrition and health. It is a company limited by guarantee, with charitable status, grant-aided by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).

Food poisoning starts when food infected with Salmonella is eaten and moves into the gut. Salmonella invades the epithelial cells lining the walls of the gut. These cells are designed to absorb nutrients, not fight disease. The epithelial cells die and detach from each other, leaving holes in the gut wall, which triggers the bloody diarrhoea characteristic of Salmonella food poisoning.

Living Innovation

Living Innovation is the annual keynote platform for the DTI to engage with businesses across the UK. BlueGnome is one of three companies to be showcased at the conference, to be staged on October 12 and aimed at encouraging small to medium enterprises to innovate within their own companies.

Entitled Adding Value to Your Business, this year's event will promote debate and encourage UK firms to look at new ways in which they can develop new added-value products and services.

For more information, contact:

Victoria Stainton/Nicola Leonard
Porter Novelli, Tel: 01295 224397/ 01295 224528

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