University of York spin-off company invents toxic testing device
Posted on 21 July 2003
A simple, quick and accurate hand-held kit which can be taken out into the field to test for toxic chemicals is being exploited by a spin-out company from the University of York.
The BATT (Bioassay Toxicity Testing) device is now being tested by environment agencies, textile industries, water boards, and diagnostic companies involved with pesticide measurement.
Microbiologist Dr Russell Grant was working on a third-year project as an undergraduate at York when the idea of the toxicity testing kit was born. He and his academic supervisors were looking at the toxicity of pesticides, including sheep dips, and found they had to wait a month for results via the conventional lab-processing route. This prompted the idea which produced the BATT spin-off company formed last October, and based at the Innovation Centre at York Science Park. The Science Park borders the University campus which allows Dr Grant to collaborate with Biology research teams.
He said: "The kit gives you a sensitive and obvious response very rapidly - minutes for pesticides at high concentrations, with trace levels measured in less than an hour. It's ready to go, you don't have to prepare anything, and it can be used in all but the most extreme conditions. It's accurate and sensitive to 5 per cent, and it can identify new toxic compounds. And, because at £25 for five units, it is cheaper than immuno-assays and chromatographic methods, companies can afford to use the kit more often than other systems. It can be used to complement tests made by far more expensive equipment."
BATT has talked to potential customers as far way as South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. It tailor-makes kits to customers' specifications and tests samples sent in to its laboratories.
Notes to editors:
- Bioassay Toxicity Testing is a spin-out company from the University of York set up to exploit bioassays originally designed for pesticide monitoring.
- Initial funding came from the University of York "Proof of Principle Fund", which draws money from the Higher Education Innovation Fund.
- The fund supports innovative and commercially worthwhile projects for which there is no other available funding.
- It aids the early stages of developing an idea and moving it towards commercial exploitation for the benefit of the inventor and the University.
- The Innovation Centre, which opened in 1994, provides incubation space for start-up companies. A wide range of services is available to tenants, including fully-furnished office suites, conferencing facilities, reception and secretarial support, legal, financial and business strategy advice, and flexible all-inclusive rental terms. Once established, businesses are expected to move into independent premises and release space for other start-up companies.
- Dr Grant studied for his PhD under the supervision of Drs Richard Firn and Bernard Betts in the Department of Biology at the University of York, submitting in November 2001.
- He is the Managing Director of BioAssay Toxicity Testing, and a Post-Doctoral Fellow of University College Dublin, in Industrial Microbiology.