"DNA Technology" is gaining momentum
Laboratory from a briefcase
Irina Litvinova, "Oka-Info", 10.07.2009
"Briefcase" is the affectionate name of the mobile genetic laboratory by its creators, employees of the Protva enterprise "DNA Technology". Of course, slang humor in each industry has its own, but seriously, this suitcase – with regalia (Grand Prix at the Days of Russian Innovations Forum) - is already "in service" with the Ministry of Emergency Situations and has no analogues in Russia.
It seems to be very quiet (what is there for science to make especially much noise), scientists are doing their job, and then, you see, the awards have gone, and the Americans are already calling them to test their devices:
– In the Russian market, we have to compete with the products of very reputable Western firms, and our immediate tasks are connected with this, respectively, – says German Samatov, head of the electronics department of DNA Technology. – Of course, we are lagging behind the West, but, nevertheless, an American company is now providing us with one of its new samples for testing in order to get our conclusion. If we talk about Russia, then at the moment we can safely beat ourselves in the chest that we are the very first on the instrument base. And mobile laboratories, for example, in general, no one except us in the country produces.
Of course, this "suitcase" in fact is a whole suitcase that two people can lift, no less. As it should be for field conditions, the case is a protective color. And, of course, stuffed with all sorts of stuff.
– Three years ago, this device existed in the form of the first sample, – adds Herman Samatov. – And we put it on industrial rails last year. In principle, inside this laboratory, all the same traditional products of the company "DNA Technology", but it is designed for mobile applications so that it is possible to conduct research in the field.
The idea of a mobile laboratory at one time arose, of course, from the natural needs of Russia – a country where the role of the agricultural, livestock sector is great, and countries with long distances.
– Imagine, it becomes known that somewhere in the North, in the Omsk region, livestock deaths have begun and veterinarians have suspicions of some serious disease, such as the plague, - says Yuri Zimin, general director of the Protva firm DNA Technology. – And what should these veterinarians do? If they decide to destroy the herd, this is a huge economic loss. And if the animal technicians were just scared? In short, in this situation, you need to do research quickly, maybe even in a peasant hut. For this purpose, there is a mobile laboratory: a specialist of the regional sanitary service can put our suitcase in the car, and connect to electricity on the spot and carry out the necessary operations. After all, it is almost always more difficult to take a DNA sample somewhere than to call a specialist. And, sometimes, it is impossible to take a high-quality sample suitable for analysis from the first time. And imagine, in such conditions, you just have to drive the plane back and forth.
The specialists of the DNA Technology company, of course, have something to show, and besides the laboratory, for example, devices for stationary diagnostics, the so-called detecting thermocyclers DT-96 and DT-384 (with 96- and 384-well thermostats, already for more analyses). With the help of these devices, doctors can diagnose many different infections in a short time, check for the presence of genetically modified components in products, establish paternity, determine hereditary diseases or what a person is predisposed to (now, for example, tests for the presence of "sports" genes are popular). At one of the exhibitions in which DT-96 participated, a genetic analysis was done to President Dmitry Medvedev (it is clear that the results are unknown to the public).
"DNA Technology" has been around for 15 years, and all this time it is huddled in removable areas. But now, it seems, finding your own premises is not far off (a conversation with Yuri Zimin, CEO, takes place under the sound of hammers and screams of workers at the construction site):
– Most of our employees in the electronics department worked at the Institute of High Energy Physics before joining us. At some point, a direction was formed in the IFE that studies not only physics, but also biology, and the study of the basic structures of the structure of biomaterial – DNA - began. By the way, at the moment this is generally a trend in the development of world science. Even in science, a lot is now connected with the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method, and all analyses on the company's devices are made on the basis of this reaction.
The essence is as follows. DNA is the basic basic structure of living matter, both viruses and bacteria have it, and each has an individual one. And if it is necessary to detect the presence of any infection in a person, a DNA sample is taken from him (from blood, saliva or other biomaterial). Then it is developed using a certain test system and, if an amplification product is detected, an appropriate conclusion is made.
But, of course, it's so simple on paper. The fact is that most often in the study, specialists deal with one DNA molecule, at best a hundred of them, and if it's really good – a thousand. It's like a speck of dust in a huge concert hall. Such a number of molecules cannot be detected even by state-of-the-art electronics, but a special test system allows you to increase the number of molecules by billions of times, significantly simplifying their detection.
The components of test systems - oligonucleotides – of course, it is impossible to see and touch – these are the same DNA molecules, only "test" ones. They "float" in solutions, and the number of oligonucleotides in the solution is huge (the chances of meeting one speck of dust in a concert hall, of course, increase). Magicians-biologists, people in white coats are working on these solutions. Yulia Loseva, the head of the laboratory, conducted me through the sterile rooms of the Protva laboratory, where diagnostic kits for the detection of urogenital infections are produced.
Several rooms (the air in them is filtered, so I had to put on shoe covers and a white coat), sterility is everywhere. The devices that pack the solution into test tubes are noisy. It smells like plastic (I must say, the smell is so stable that my bag smelled of it for a long time). Someone from the staff packs a special oil:
– The reagent in a small test tube is closed with a paraffin stopper and oil (at this moment a bag with a sticker "Ureaplasma urealiticum" comes across on the way), – explains Yulia Loseva. – During the analysis, some more reagents are added to the upper part of the tube, above the cork, plus the material that was received from the patient. The entire mixture in the device is quickly and accurately brought to a temperature acceptable for PCR, after which the paraffin melts, the patient's DNA sample flows down, and the reaction itself begins. Detection takes place in real time, this is the so-called real-time format. That is, we can monitor how many times the number of DNA molecules has increased depending on a particular reaction cycle.
But all this, of course, is scientific lyrics. The practice is such that now DNA Technology has entered into cooperation with many Russian medical centers that work in the field of diagnostics, with blood transfusion stations, with oncological centers that can tell from certain sequences of oligonucleotides whether a given person has a predisposition to cancer. The company has test systems for swine flu, hepatitis, AIDS, and urogenital infections. An agreement has also been signed with the Institute of Physical Education and test systems have already been prepared for athletes, which will allow them to determine, for example, what is more inherent in a person - sprinting or stayering.
As for the mobile laboratory, this technology is new for Russia. And in the West, such equipment exists only in the format "for the military" (and on slightly different principles than the domestic mobile laboratory). However, according to German Samatov, the specialists of the company have no task to "catch up and overtake", the most urgent thing for them now is modernization. More precisely, the automation of the process. First of all, it will increase productivity, but most importantly, it will help to avoid mistakes that are inevitable during manual sample preparation. These mistakes can lead to serious consequences – an impermissible thing when it comes to life or death.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru13.07.2009