www.checkbiotech.org ; www.czu.cz ; www.raupp.info

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) plant pathologist William Schneider has
used, or is familiar with, just about every kind of method of identifying
organisms that cause plant diseases, from light microscopes to so-called
genetic fingerprinting, November 2006 by Jan Suszkiw.

Each has its place in the field of disease diagnostics. But what's really
excited Schneider is a procedure called TIGER, short for "Triangulation
Identification for Genetic Evaluation of Risks."

According to Schneider, with the ARS Foreign Disease-Weed Science Research
Unit in Fort Detrick, Md., TIGER has the potential to identify virtually
every kind of microbe that may be present in a given sample?and to do so in
a matter of minutes.

Other methods, including those that use polymerase chain reaction (PCR)?best
known for its role in genetic fingerprinting?take hours, days or weeks. And
even then, such methods typically detect only up to a few dozen microbes at
a time.

Speed coupled with accuracy, sensitivity and ease of use promise to make
TIGER a frontline tool in detecting new, as-yet-undescribed pathogens, or
exotic ones that originate outside the United States, like citrus greening,
citrus canker and soybean rust.

Schneider's "neighbors" at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of
Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Fort Detrick were among the first there to
use TIGER as part of the military lab's mission to detect, diagnose and
counter human pathogens, such as those encountered by deployed troops. Last
summer, Schneider began collaborating with Chris Whitehouse of USAMRIID's
Diagnostic Systems Division to test and build TIGER's capacity to identify
crop pathogens.

Along with ARS postdoctoral researcher Elena Postnikova, Schneider and
Whitehouse are conducting research on three fronts, starting with 14 genera
of plant disease bacteria. Of particular interest is verifying TIGER's use
of generalized primers as a sort of one-size-fits-all "homing beacon" to
distinguish bacteria from other microbes in a sample, such as leaf tissue.

[www.ars.usda.gov]

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