artus GmbH (Hamburg) and the Bernhard-Nocht-Institute for Tropical Medicine (BNI, Hamburg) have announced that they will co- operate on the development and marketing of diagnostic PCR kits.

The BNI will develop a variety of PCR-kits for the detection of pathogens that will be marketed worldwide together with artus.

'This co-operation increases our research and development capacity in the area of tropical pathogens considerably and makes it possible for the BNI to commercialize their know-how' says Thomas Grewing, Head of Research & Development at artus.

The first project will be the development of a detection system for Ebola viruses. This allows artus to supplement its existing range of products for the detection of tropical disease pathogens, e.g. Dengue and West-Nile Virus.

As National Reference Center for Tropical Diseases, the BNI possesses a broad range of specialized diagnostic techniques and is running a laboratory of the highest biological safety category for handling extremely contagious fever viruses.