Alicon's earlier test for mad cow disease

A Swiss team has developed a reliable blood test for younger, live cows. Now it is looking for investment to develop a test for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.

One of the ugly effects of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or mad cow disease, other than the pitiful stumbling of cattle as it eats away their brain, is that the only way to confirm the disease has been to kill the animal suspected of having it.

But a group of researchers at Alicon AG in Schlieren, Switzerland, is using technology licensed exclusively from ETH Zurich to test live cows and cattle, and at an earlier age than has been possible before. The worry is that sick cows and cattle might infect humans who eat their meat, and some of the younger animals may have the disease without showing symptoms.

The researchers aim to use their blood test on more cows, and then bring it to market in 2007. They also plan to devise a test for humans with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a similar neurodegenerative disorder. And they plan to test it on similar animal diseases such as chronic wasting disease in elks and scrapie in sheep.

To date, scientists have been able to test for BSE in cattle 30 months or older post mortem using time-consuming tests such as the long-used ELISA assays, Western blots, and immunohistochemistry tests. The new blood test is faster than those tests - it takes hours versus the current few days. The goal is to shave off the current eight-hour blood test down to even fewer hours, said Ralph Zahn, CEO of Alicon.

The blood test already can detect BSE in cattle at 22 months, before they show symptoms of the disease, Zahn said, adding that may be possible to nudge that a few months earlier over time. BSE first appears in the blood, then the nerves, and then the brain. All of the current tests look for prions, the infectious protein structures that cause the disease.

Another advantage of the Alicon test is that it uses blood rather than brain tissue. Prions are very difficult to detect, and if two brain tissue samples are taken, even side by side, one might show prions and the other might not. That will not happen with a blood test, Zahn said.

So far the test has been conducted successfully on 200 animals the scientists infected with BSE. The next step is to take that to more animals, eventually testing between 5,000 and 10,000 animals in the second half of 2006.

Alicon aims to register the test as a diagnostic in the European Union at the end of 2006.

The company is seeking 10-15 million Swiss francs in additional funding now to use the test for humans for Creutzfeldt-Jakob testing, as well as screening blood from blood banks that will be used for transfusions. That will be a second-generation test kit that will yield faster results for human blood bank screening, he said.

Zahn would not discuss details of how the technology works, as patents still are pending in Switzerland from both ETH and his company. He also would not comment on the amount of venture capital money the company already has nor from whom, except to say it is enough to fund the animal testing.