UAF Faculty Member Receives US Patent

August 9, 2021

As we live through the generational pandemic of COVID-19, and with recent viral outbreaks of Ebola, SARS, and H1N1, increasingly there is pressure for laboratories and clinics to provide accurate diagnoses of human pathogens more rapidly, particularly in the context of an infectious disease outbreak. However, looking for a pathogen in a specimen can be like searching for a poison needle in a haystack.

UAF Associate Professor Jack Chen, of the Institute of Arctic Biology Biomedical Science group, in June was awarded U.S. Patent No. 11,035,000, “Methods and Compositions for Enriching Non-Host Sequences in Host Samples.” The patent describes a new technique to greatly amplify pathogenic sequences in human clinical samples so they’re easier to detect. This new procedure provides a fast and sequence-independent means to identify the poison needle in the haystack of gene sequences.

This technique can also be used in clinical laboratories for detecting human viral pathogens such as HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), the hepatitis C virus, and the influenza virus, while also significantly lowering the cost per sample. Chen and UAF’s Office of Intellectual Property and Commercialization are in discussions with potential industry partners to share this technology with the world to help fight disease outbreaks.

If you would like more information about this project, please contact us at UAF-OIPC@alaska.edu.