Disease Diagnostics

Saturn biotech has developed world standard expertise in the detection of pathogenic organisms and genetically inherited diseases of a many plant, animal and marine species. The tests are routinely used by industry to provide a competitive edge over their competitors.

Plant Pathogens

Saturn offers a range of accurate and reliable high throughput diagnostic tests, (qualitative and quantitative) for detection of fungal and viral pathogens in a range of crops using the latest molecular techniques (e.g. RT-PCR, PCR, RFLP-PCR & real-time PCR). Routine tests include:

• Anthracnose disease of lupins
• Cucumber mosaic virus of lupins, chickpeas and lentils
• Ascochyta blight disease of chickpeas & lentils
• Wheat streak mosaic virus of wheat
• Potato viruses S, X & Y, Potato leaf roll virus and Tomato spotted wilt virus
• White spot syndrome virus disease of prawns
• Yellow head virus disease of prawns
• A wide range of important viral diseases of agricultural and horticultural crops

These tests are so highly specific that, for example, they can detect one infected seed in a sample of ten thousand healthy seeds (1:10,000) .