Cooperative refining of the BioChip microarray into a routine investigative tool to address emerging viral diseases

Club 5 project
In two previous projects, UK BioChip and EU NoE project Epizone, we have established micro-array principles to detect rare or newly emerging viruses. In the UK BioChip project we established the technology and successfully provided evidence for its feasibility (Gurrala et al., 2009). In the latter, we extended the approach and adopted the technology to in situ synthesis printing for its punctuality, higher density and lower background.
The key aim of the proposes project is to refine the microarray probe coverage for transfer into a regular investigatative tool, particularly addressing avian diseases. The array will also be used to investigate several Diagnosis Not Reached (DNR) cases where multiple infections or emerging/novem viruses are suspected.