DOWN the coast from Alaska and the Arctic, it would come quietly. And it could be deadly. Bird flu. Veterinarians call it avian influenza. Technically, it is the H5N1 virus, the one that has sickened hundreds of humans in Asia and the Middle East and killing well over 100. Not to mention the untold number of chickens and other domestic birds that have been affected.

Physicians and veterinarians are worried that bird flu could next enter the United States. Politicians are worried about a pandemic. And many point to a logical entry mechanism for the disease - in wild ducks and geese (which are unaffected by the flu but carry it in their systems) mixing with Asian birds in the far north and migrating down the so-called Pacific Flyway into the Pacific Northwest and the Western mainland. As of early June, U.S. officials were already testing Arctic birds for the disease.
 
Corporations, too, have been warned to be ready. The Conference Board, a New York-based independent nonprofit research organization, says, "Companies failing to create detailed crisis management and business continuity plans are likely to find themselves at peril"? if a pandemic occurs. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services publishes a detailed checklist, available on the Internet, of steps companies need to take to prepare.

Enter CombiMatrix Corp. The Mukilteo company has developed a piece of equipment that can rapidly detect bird flu. Called Influenza Surveillance Technology, the system is based on the company's microarrays - essentially semiconductors that conduct biological and chemical processes. It can produce results in just four hours instead of days or weeks for current tests, which is important in stopping the spread of the disease because anti-flu drugs can be quickly administered to victims before they infect other humans. While it is not yet proven that bird flu can spread from human to human, there are suspected cases of it doing just that in Indonesia.

"When we realized influenza was potentially a major threat for the United States and the world, we developed a specific product for that application," says CombiMatrix President Amit Kumar, Ph.D. "We are doing similar applications for anthrax and plague."

In Washington, CombiMatrix will work with the Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (WADDL), a publicly supported laboratory located at Washington State University Puyallup that does testing on animals to detect diseases such as bird flu and mad cow disease. Says Dr. Terry McElwain, WADDL's executive director, in a statement: "Completing a test that can type the virus in four hours would be a significant advance over the conventional approach in monitoring the spread of infection once an outbreak has been confirmed."

"Washington could be a key entry point," says Kumar.

Nationally, the company will partner with Science Applications International Corp.'s EAI Corp. for field deployment of CombiMatrix's flu-screening technology. It is also participating in the National Early Detection System, a federal program to monitor birds across the country to discover when the disease first shows up and how it spreads.

The bird flu detection technology is ready to be used on birds and humans outside of the United States. In this country, humans can be tested in laboratories authorized under the standards laid down by the 1988 Clinical Laboratories Improvement Amendments, but Food and Drug Administration approval is still months away, says Kumar.

The company is now working on reducing the instrument to handheld size.

CombiMatrix's approach is just one of many under way to deal with bird flu. For instance, in May, GlaxoSmithKline won a $274 million contract from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to speed development of a vaccine to protect humans from the H5N1 virus. And an Arizona State University researcher is working on a new process to dramatically speed up production of flu vaccines - a process that can take up to six months and is basically unchanged for 50 years.

HOMELAND SECURITY,TOO
The bird flu test is not the only exciting piece of technology under development at CombiMatrix. The company, which had revenues of about $8 million in 2005, is working on a handheld sensor to identify biological weapons threats. Under a sub-contract with Northrop Grumman Corp., CombiMatrix is helping to develop a tool that can recognize a wide range of biological weapons, including those based on bacteria, viruses and toxins.

CombiMatrix is specifically contributing the technology that will basically conduct the types of tests that now must be done in a laboratory. In the lab, fluids are moved from test tube to test tube by technicians. "Unfortunately, when you have a soldier in the field in battle, they can't do that,"? explains Kumar. "One requirement is to mix the solutions at the right time in the right order. What we are building for a number of applications is a cartridge that allows us to mix a certain amount of a solution in the right order. The cartridge is the size of a credit card.

"So a soldier in the field just has to press a button, and all of the solutions are mixed,"? he explains. "It can only be used once, but it doesn't need a technician."

Funding for development of the device, called the Handheld Isothermal Silver Standard Sensor, originates at the Special Project Office of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a secretive federal agency that has developed such weapons as the Stealth aircraft and unmanned spy drones. Currently under development at DARPA are GPS systems that can be used in caves in Afghanistan and devices that coagulate internal bleed- ing in injured soldiers in Iraq.

The Northrop Grumman/CombiMatrix tool "will give units in the field the capability to detect the complete spectrum of threat agents at the same level of performance currently achieved in the laboratory,"? DARPA says.

While Kumar describes the initial contract as "modest ... less than $100,000,"? he explains that once the prototype is done, the government must decide "whether to put it on the shelf or buy thousands of them. ... It could turn into something very large."

Fighting the bird flu and uncovering the tools of bioterrorism are only two of the potential applications for CombiMatrix's technology. It is working in the emerging field of molecular diagnostics to determine whether an individual is predisposed to catching a particular disease or is susceptible to adverse drug reactions.

"We are trying to understand how genes control disease,"? explains the CombiMatrix CEO. "The sequencing of the human genome was just the beginning. ... It gave us all the letters of the dictionary. Now we have to figure out how to use those letters to create words and sentences," Kumar says. "If you are sick, often you get a drug to treat the symptom. Our goal is to treat the underlying causes rather than trying to treat the pain once you get it."

A fourth major focus for the company is the identification of drugs, with a focus on cancer. Its first drug may be able to treat acute myelogenous leukemia, which Kumar says can kill a patient "within weeks to a couple of years" unless a bone marrow donor is found for a transplant.

Stock in CombiMatrix, which is one of two divisions of Acacia Research Corp., is already publicly traded. However, plans are in the works to spin the company off as an independently traded company, an event that Kumar expects to happen in the third quarter.