Ubiquitome Announces 'Freedom for You Grants Program' Finalists

Ubiquitome has announced the 10 finalists of its ‘Freedom For You Grants Program’ at the Plant and Animal Genome XXIII Conference in San Diego, California (Booth #625). The program is designed to provide support for remote qPCR projects, with each winner receiving a Freedom4 device.

The ten finalists are receiving support from Ubiquitome in the form of Freedom4 qPCR reagents and consumables, project design consultation, and technical support, including wet lab processing.

Below are the 10 finalists and a description of how Freedom4 would advance their research:
• Jonathan Banks, The Cawthron Institute. Use of the Freedom4 would enable faster identification of Adelie penguin mating patterns in Antarctica, eliminating the need to send samples back to New Zealand for analysis.
• Holly Bowers, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Use of the Freedom4 would enable testing of whole water samples for toxic algae in real-time versus waiting to return to shore.
• Rachel Fleming, Institute of Environmental Science and Research Ltd. The Freedom4 would enable the police to conduct onsite testing of bodily fluids and DNA samples at crime scenes instead of in the lab.
• Gebremeskel Hidat, Aksum University. The Freedom4 would allow for on-site testing of HPV/HIV samples to identify if the diseases are present, speeding up the overall treatment process.
• Dibesh Karmacharya, Center for Molecular Dynamics, Nepal. With a 30 day journey to the Himalayan Ranges to collect Snow Leopard samples and a high rate of wrong data, the Freedom4 would allow the team more valuable time with accurate samples in the lab.
• Joseph Mwangi, Kenya Medical Research Institute, Nairobi. The Freedom4 would allow for point-of-care HIV testing services in Kenya.
• Robert Puschendorf, School of Biological Sciences, Plymouth University. The Freedom4 would help alleviate tight border security in Latin America, allowing onsite testing of amphibian disease and death in Costa Rica, eliminating the need to test samples in the UK.
• Emily Telfer, Scion. The Freedom4 would give the research team the ability to measure the Kauri dieback more effectively in New Zealand’s forests, allowing breeding programs a better chance of success.
• Diwalker Tripathi, Washington State University. The Freedom4 would enable faster testing of tospovirus in onion crops, allowing the fast removal of infected plants before the virus can spread.
• Jos van der Vossen, TNO. The Freedom4 would allow for quicker detection of campylobacter and increase the assurance of infection-free fresh poultry for sale.

Fitting in the palm of a hand, Ubiquitome’s Freedom4 instrument operates on battery power alone for up to six hours and delivers gold-standard real-time PCR performance wherever needed. The platform runs using an iPhone or laptop computer, is housed in a rugged aluminum casing and features a solid state design that includes laser-based optical detection, which is widely recognized as offering the highest performance in real-time PCR.

Paul Pickering, Ubiquitome CEO, said “Our mission is to provide ubiquitous access to genomic information by empowering researchers with mobile genetic analysis tools. We’re pleased that this program attracted the attention of worldwide researchers, broadened the awareness of Freedom4’s capabilities while also demonstrating that it may be the ‘technology of choice’ in a wide variety of environments.”

Three grant winners will receive a Freedom4 gold standard qPCR mobile device worth $25,000. Grant winners will be selected on the basis of scientific merit, originality and communicating the validity of using the Freedom4 in remote/field applications.