3M granted rights to use BART technology in combination with amplification technologies for nucleic acid test kits.

Lumora and 3M inked a joint development and licensing agreement giving the latter rights to develop and market nucleic acid test kits based on Lumora’s BART (bioluminescent assay in real-time) technology.

The BART technology is a closed-tube reporter system designed to be used in combination with isothermal nucleic acid amplification technologies for real-time molecular diagnostic applications. The technology effectively causes a positive sample to emit enough light that the need for highly sensitive light detection apparatus is removed, Lumora claims.

Details on the platform were published in PLoS One, in November 2010. Essentially, the BART approach generates a bioluminescent output as a result of the exponential increase in inorganic pyrophosphate (PPi) that is produced during the isothermal amplification of a specific nucleic acid target. During the nucleic acid amplification process, the enzymatic conversion of PPi released during DNA synthesis into ATP is continuously monitored through the bioluminescence generated by thermostable firefly luciferase.

The BART technology can be coupled to a range of isothermal nucleic acid amplification technologies, the firm states, and because it is the timing of light output peak that is proportional to concentration of the original target nucleic acid, the technology can be used for both qualitative and quantitative analysis of specific targets, and differentiation between negative and positive samples.

Lumora is looking for additional collaborative development and licensing partnerships to further develop and commercialize the BART technology. 

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