Your throat is swollen, and it hurts like hell. At the doctor's office, a culture swabbed across a computer chip reveals "strep throat" within seconds. The technology may resemble a Star Trek tricorder, but it's here - now. Invented by San Diego-based Nanogen, the system - dubbed APEX - can detect multiple diseases on the spot. It works by placing a patient sample on the surface of a special Nanogen chip. Woven into the surface of the chip are DNA strands called capture probes that interact with patients' DNA, triggering a positive reading if the probes detect DNA that match the illnesses - like strep throat - they're programmed to detect.
It's a marriage built in biotechnology heaven. "Right now, you go to the doctor's office with a sore throat, he takes a swab, hands you some antibiotics, and tells you to call in two days," says Nanogen president Tina Nova. "With APEX, the sample can be placed on the chip, and within minutes it will test for strep culture or any other respiratory disease.
Nanogen's APEX scanner isn't as flashy as Doctor McCoy's medical tricorder - requiring direct contact with human tissue instead of a casual wave over the body - but Nova nevertheless predicts it will revolutionize diagnostic medicine. "We're using electronics as the basis of our science," she says, adding that her technology could pose a competitive threat to conventional test tube laboratories, where results can be late and are occasionally wrong.
Nanogen broke onto the scene three years ago, and the not-yet-public company is still waiting for its invention to go to town. But that's normal for the US$10.8 billion biotech industry, where research and development can often last a decade or more, and cost millions, before products are ready to hit the market. The APEX system still must pass an FDA testing regimen specially designed for the hybrid silicon-DNA technology. Nova predicts a lab-ready prototype by 1997 and a marketable version a few years later.
Nova's third venture in eight years, Nanogen has made her the envy of fellow scientists and the darling of biotech investors. "My specialty is the start-up phase. They know I'll work 12 hours a day, eight days a week to get it right."
