A Kiwi startup firm has received US$1.7 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to further develop its ground-breaking technology that enables the detection of diseases and biosecurity threats through scent.
Scentian Bio, a company spun out of Plant and Food Research, has developed sensor technology that mimics insects’ smell receptors by detecting the volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) or smells that are in liquids and air.
The Gates Foundation works to improve lives in third world nations in particular and two key diseases the technology identifies, tuberculosis and malaria, are major disease focuses for the fund.
New Zealand companies receiving Gates’ funding have been relatively few and far between in recent years.
The University of Otago received $320,000 in 2015 for work on salmonella research in third world countries, and in 2016 Massey University received $50,000 for Ebola research.
Headed up by ex-Plant and Food scientist Andrew Kralicek, the researchers initially identified the genes for insects’ smell receptors.
The genes themselves are like a hand that reaches and grabs the liquid or gas and when delivered it is bound to the receptor site and sends a signal to identify what it is.
The researchers have synthetically reproduced these receptors, decoding the language insects use to identify one smell from another, programming a computer to do the same.
An example is a fly that has 45 receptors. The researchers can put 45 receptors on a chip and expose it to VOCs and learn the response pattern to different smells, such as bad milk.
“We are creating the world’s first camera for smell by detecting the pattern response from an array of olfactory receptors on an electronic chip,” Kralicek said.
The researchers are taking the tech beyond the lab in the shape of a device twice the size and slightly thicker than a cell phone.
Applications include biosecurity detection at the border, environmental monitoring and health applications.
The company is in the early stages of capital raising to accelerate the development of the platform and aims to deploy an initial product prototype in a food production environment.
The Gates Foundation has some well-defined areas where it aims to invest, including gender equality, global health and global development programs.
High profile projects have included efforts to fund a more sustainable, environmentally friendly toilet suitable for developing countries, a project Bill Gates himself took a close interest in.
This included Gates taking a swig of water from a machine that processed faecal sludge into potable water, while burning human waste to generate electricity.
To date the foundation has committed more than US$200m to the decade-long toilet quest.
The foundation aims to disburse US$9b annually by 2026, up from US$6b now, and Gates himself recently announced he would be transferring an additional US$20b of his personal wealth into the foundation.
His net worth is estimated at US$113b.
“From detecting disease on the breath for improved healthcare outcomes, to providing safe and high-quality food for growing populations, Scentian Bio has some ambitious goals for our technology over the next few years,” Scentian’s chief commercial officer Darja Pavolvic-Nelson, said.
“Our relationship with the foundation is a real asset on the journey to prove how our technology can make a meaningful difference in healthcare globally.”
