DoE tests Isonics's aerosol bio-decontamination system
Company receives $1 million in funding to perfect technology; tests come as Isonics faces delisting from Nasdaq
There is good news and bad for Golden, Colorado-based Isonics. The bad news is that the company has been threatened with delisting from the Nasdaq. The good news is that the company’s aerosol bio-decontamination system is currently undergoing tests by the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration as part of the Global Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention (GIPP) program. Initially developed by Russian scientists and tested at the Russian State Scientific Center Research Institute of Highly Pure Biopreparations, Isonics’s clean-up system is intended as a competitor to various liquid-phase and vapor-phase methods of decontaminating microbial and fungal cells, spores or viruses. “The technology… holds promise for post-terrorist clean-up applications such as anthrax in the Hart Senate Office Building and avian flu contamination,” said Isonics CEO James Alexander.
Under a multi-year Cooperative Research and Development Agreement between Isonics and DOE, the federal government will provide $1 million in funding, and Isonics will in return provide in-kind contributions of comparable value to perfect the system, GSN reported. A commercialized version is expected within the next two years.
