About Our Scope

MICROBE DETECTION

Why PCR? Traditional culture methods have been commonly used for microbial detection and microbial identification, however, they have limitations. Due to a lengthy culture time (1-7 days) and significant challenges for culturing some microorganisms, culture methods cannot provide rapid diagnostic solutions. Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) has demonstrated its effectiveness to detect and identify microbes in less than a few hours with precision.

What are our target microbes? Our assays target a broad spectrum of microbes including bacterial and viral pathogens that infect plants, animals, and humans. Recently, we were able to use our PCR assays to detect Clostridium bacteria from cat food and to detect Mycobacterium spp. from industrial products. Our lab is CDC ELITE certified to test for Legionella from environmental samples. If you want us to detect pathogens in human food, animal food, industrial products, or environmental samples, do not hesitate to send us your samples for testing. We want to help our clients to confirm microbial presence in products and to detect microbial contamination in environmental, agricultural samples. Our PCR-based assays can be tailored to meet clients’ specific needs with short turn-around time. 

At Cicadea Biotech, we have developed PCR assays to detect the following bacteria:
Acinetobacter baumannii;
Staphylococcus aureus;
Staphylococcus epidermidis;
Streptococcus pyogens;
Enterococcus faecalis;
Pseudomonas aeruginosa;
Salmonella enterica;
Klebsiella pneumoniae;
Listeria monocytogenes;
Escherichia coli; Serotype O157:H7;
Legionella pneumonophila; subsp. Pneumonophila and Legionella spp.;
Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium spp.

The PCR testing services for these bacteria are available at your request. In addition, we also sell PCR detection kits for the detection of these bacteria. Each kit will include known standard DNAs for quantification purposes. Please contact us for more details.

GENE DETECTION

PCR technology has been widely used for gene detection by scientists. Cicadea Biotech serves as a contract research organization to perform PCR testing for gene detection. Our PCR testing platforms include Realtime PCR or qPCR for copy number analysis, Endpoint PCR for qualitative analysis, and ddPCR analysis for DNA quantification and copy number analysis. We work with clients to develop custom PCR assays for gene detection and perform high-throughput genotyping. We provide rapid-testing solutions to detect transgenes in plants and human cancer-related genes. We also perform genomic analysis on any DNA samples.

TURN-AROUND TIME

Our turn-around time for PCR testing can be from 24 hours to days depending on the availability of the assays. The turn-around time for new assay development varies by the availability of materials and assay complexity. We work closely with clients to come up with a reasonable timeline for both assay work and testing work.