Scheme Lab, a biotech startup incubated at the Center for Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Technology (CIETEC), in São Paulo, Brazil, is developing genetic tests that can be used anywhere - in factories, on farms, or even at home - without the need for analysis by specialized laboratories.
These "point-of-care" tests will identify genetic alterations that can be used to measure meat quality, the characteristics of seedlings and plants, or the resistance of disease-transmitting mosquitoes, such as Aedes aegypti, to pesticides used against them.
"We're at the prototype stage," says biologist John Katz, a US citizen who before becoming an entrepreneur, earned a PhD from the University of Chicago, pursued postdoctoral studies at Harvard Medical School, and worked as a patent agent at the US law firm Finnegan Henderson.
From the start, Scheme Lab aimed at the development a new diagnostic device that could rapidly and simply detect single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), a type of DNA sequence variation that accounts for over 90% of genetic variation in humans, Katz explained.
The prototype was optimized, and the main technology plus enhancements were patented by the firm, which dubbed the new product Simple SNP.
"The test platform can be used for any kind of genetic sequencing," says Katz.
The text above is a summary, you can read full article here.