Hypothetical Example Scenarios of Mobile Assay Technology

The Sunlight Clinic recently adopted a Healthy Living initiative, which includes an anti-smoking policy for its employees. In addition to promoting the health of their employees, they determined the new policy would produce a significant cost savings resulting from lowered insurance premiums. In their anti-smoking campaign they began a screening policy. Employees whose saliva consistently tested negative for nicotine received a bonus. To implement this new policy to screen all 300 employees on a monthly basis they shipped the saliva samples to Amber Labs for nicotine testing using rapid test strips. The samples took two days to be tested and the results were express mailed back. The total turn around time was about 1 week and 95% of their samples turned up negative because the employees were motivated to comply. Since the Sunlight Clinic's nicotine screening was randomized, they could not coordinate the shipping and testing in batches without storing the samples. After one year of implementation their financial analysis indicated that much of the cost savings they had anticipated from the reduced insurance premiums and increased worker productivity were offset by increased time and money spent shipping mostly negative samples for slow and costly laboratory analysis.

Sunlight Clinic discovered Mobile Assay Inc. and introduced them to Amber Labs to work together for a low-cost, easy to use mobile platform solution with immediate results, secure permanent record-keeping and useful analysis. Amber Labs licensed Mobile Assay Inc mobile platform technology to develop a 100% custom solution for the Sunlight Clinic using the same rapid tests they had been using. Using the secure data stored on Mobile Assay Inc's Amazon EC2 cloud server and analytical metrics they were able to track the progress of their employees over time to gauge the effectiveness of their program. The results indicated a significant cost-savings for Sunlight Clinic and an added value for Amber Labs' rapid test strips.

It has been estimated that there exists between 24 and 81 million cases of foodborne illness in the United States, which is estimated to cost between $5 billion and $17 billion in medical care and lost productivity. The pathogens responsible for such illness range from those that cause diarrhea to those that can kill. In the summer of 2011 there was an outbreak of lysteriosis coming from tainted cantaloupes that resulted in 72 cases and 16 deaths in the United States. The deadly Lysteria bacteria is particularly robust and can survive refrigeration. Symptoms of lysteriosis are similar to the flu, but can escalate and, if left untreated, can be deadly with a mortality rate as high as 30 percent in the elderly, pregnant women, or very young. To track the origin and severity of outbreaks, top food investigators need a scalable mobile testing platform that will enable them to quickly identify the steps to take to prevent the catastrophic spread of the tainted food.

Dr. Overturf is one such food detective. She is Director of a food safety laboratory in New Mexico. Her laboratory was chosen to receive samples from 17 states where up to 1.5 million cantaloupe had been shipped from the source of the outbreak. Due to cuts in Federal and State spending, she is understaffed, overworked, and lacks the capacity to scale up to sudden outbreaks.

She discovered Mobile Assay Inc and together they worked to develop a rapid screen to detect the presence of Lysteria from thousands of samples across the nation. In one day's time, Mobile Assay Tracker (equipped with the Food Pathogen Data Collection Module) was deployed to 10 strategic sites and to over 50 field agents for field sampling. Real-time geo-tagged data collected from random samples of cantaloupes were measured in the field and transmitted for analysis on Dr. Overturf.s secure Amazon EC2 instance of Mobile Assay Cloud. The analysis allowed Dr. Overturf to quickly identify the source of the outbreak notify the communities affected and track the clean up process.

Mobile Assay Tracker is available for iOS and Android smartphones and tablets for tracking any pathogen that can be detected using standard rapid lateral flow test strips. Like the Lysteria Data Collection Module, modules exist for E.coli, Salmonella, and more!

Four environmental scientists from the University of Colorado, Boulder, are visiting a small village near Minagua, Nicaragua. They are attempting to determine the source of an epidemic of nonspecific illness amongst primarily the children in the village. The researchers suspect an environmental toxin has seeped into the community's water supply. Mobile Assay's Tracker technology is used with arsenic, nitrates and phosphates, pH, and lead Data Collection Modules. These modules are able to collect and interpret samples acquired through corresponding rapid test strips. Mobile tablets are used to quantify a panel of rapid test strip targets. After testing the water they determine that the primary pollutant in the area is lead from a local paint factory.

They inform the community leaders and the paint company and they begin clean up of the area. The researchers leave to return to CU after training members of the community to use Mobile Assay Tracker to monitor the levels of lead in the water supply during and after the clean up.

Back in their University labs they monitored the progress of the clean up via Mobile Assay Cloud and other custom analysis tools developed by Mobile Assay that provided easy-to-use real-time tracking of water quality for the community. Based on the stream of data that was provided by volunteers in the village during the next year they were able to track the effectiveness of the clean up project.

In the process of gathering water quality data they made a novel and important discovery using Mobile Assay Tracker. They found a seasonal fluctuation in the nitrate levels that reflected and interaction between the river flow and concentration waste discharge from local livestock feed lots.

The villagers were able to use the simple cloud-based analysis tools provided by Mobile Assay Cloud to optimize and track the management of their industrial and agricultural waste in order to protect their precious water supply. Today the water supply in the community remains lead and nitrate free and is monitored using standard rapid test strips and mobile technology developed by Mobile Assay Inc. as part of their innovative water quality and flow tracking technology.

One of the Many Lateral Flow Test Strips that can be Utilized on a Dairy Farm to Reduce Costs and Increase Efficiency...

The Hardy Dairy farm produces 80 million pounds of milk each year. Like all dairies they are required to test the milk for Aflatoxin, a naturally occurring fungal toxin and one of the most carcinogenic substances known. Before any milk leaves the dairy it has to be tested. Their method for Aflatoxin testing involves taking a sample and sending it off for testing or using expensive enzyme linked immunoassays on site at $35-50 per test. The costs and turnaround time between tests meant they had to test larger batches. This limited their ability to identify specific sources of Aflatoxin and resulted in larger losses on the occasions when levels tested high.

The Hardy Dairy was interested in reducing the turnaround time and cost of their Aflatoxin diagnostics, so they contacted Mobile Assay Inc. The Hardy Dairy learned that Smartphone mobile diagnostic technology could be used with approved and certified rapid immuno-test strips to provide results in less than 10 minutes and a required high sensitivity of 10 parts per billion. Mobile Assay's technology utilizes Mobile Assay Tracker and Cloud with the Aflatoxin Data Collection Module. Mobile Assay Inc. designed a custom solution for them that included mobile diagnostic certification training for the workers, proper sample collection, and testing. Managers at the Hardy Dairy were able to continuously monitor results in real-time on the web via Mobile Assay Cloud and mobile devices via Mobile Assay Tracker Manager, which provide automated secure cloud-based reports and mobile alerts.

Because Mobile Assay Tracker, Cloud and Tracker Manager solutions were a fraction of the cost of their previous method, they were able to test more batches and identify point sources of Aflatoxin more efficiently. This meant reduced losses. The Hardy Dairy calculated a substantial annual cost savings resulting from their use of Mobile Assay mobile diagnostic solutions.

Mobile Assay Tracker (with Aflatoxin Data Collection Module) is available for iOS and Android smartphones and tablets. When used together with Tracker, the Aflatoxin Data Collection Module provides quantification of Aflatoxin M1 and G strains and several other pathogens.