Innovator
| by Shawn Lawrence
Ottawa’s Spartan Bioscience set to make point-of-care DNA testing a reality
W
e live in interesting times, bearing witness to a convergence of accelerated healthcare technologies that are empowering patients to manage their own personal health. Examples include such innovations like home blood glucose meters, pregnancy tests, and various other pointof-care diagnostics. And now, thanks to the efforts of an Ottawa-based firm, Spartan Bioscience, the field of DNA analysis is about to take an exponential leap forward. It’s all thanks to the invention of a tiny new device called the Spartan Cube. As Paul Lem, CEO and founder of the company explains, the Spartan Cube is on the verge of pushing the power of DNA analysis farther, faster and closer to the end user than ever before. Billed as the world’s smallest DNA analyzer, Lem and his team have constructed a device that not only shrinks the DNA testing process, it takes it out of the hands of lab technicians working with large machines and puts it into those of the consumer. At the same time, it has cut the time it takes to produce DNA analysis results from weeks and months, to as few as 30 minutes. It’s small, roughly the size of a coffee cup, and it packs a powerful punch to accurately diagnose a range of infections. A former medical doctor with a back-
ground in infectious diseases, Lem says his goal was to make DNA testing accessible with the Cube. On this point, he compares the evolution of DNA analysis to that of computer technologies. Specifically, how such technological advances have changed our everyday lives, giving users instant access to information. In much the same way that computer technologies have evolved from cumbersome clunky machines into more personal, faster and portable devices, Lem believes the Cube will do the same for healthcare diagnostics. He adds that the device has quite a few of the D’s of exponential technology covered. For example, it’s digitized, disruptive, demonetized, and one day, hopefully he says, it will be fully democratized. “Because it’s small enough to fit into your hand and extremely portable, you can bring it anywhere.” he says. He expects that the device when approved, will be in every doctor’s office, pharmacies, and eventually in millions of homes, all at a relatively cheap price. “With the Cube we’re striving to drive the price of DNA analysis down significantly and make it affordable to everyone,” he adds. This is the evolution of DNA testing that he envisioned when he first launched Spartan Bioscience in 2005. Back then he was a doctor specializing in medical microbiology.
As Paul Lem, the man behind the invention, and CEO and founder of the company explains, the Spartan Cube is on the verge of pushing the power of DNA analysis farther, faster and closer to the end user than ever before. February/March 2017 BIOTECHNOLOGY FOCUS 19
