TessArae History
TessArae technology began as a US Department of Defense (DOD) development project to create an assay with the ability to identify—in a single sample—hundreds of epidemic or biothreat pathogens circulating in military troops. After nearly $40 million of DOD funding, the resultant targeted sequencing technology was licensed in 2005 to the newly formed TessArae by its scientific architect, Dr. Clark Tibbetts, and the executive who oversaw the project for DOD, General Klaus Schafer. TessArae has now become widely recognized as the leader in targeted sequencing using a microarray. Since inception, the company has designed fifteen custom assays for a wide variety of partners, including worldwide government agencies, academic institutions and commercial reference laboratories. See Who is Using TessArae Microbial Identification Technology.
In 2009, at the beginning of the H1N1 epidemic, TessArae technology was responsible for identifying some of the first sentinel cases of that disease in Southern California. TessArae subsequently received FDA Emergency Use Authorization for a version of its RPM Flu assay—a diagnostic which identified the sequence of H1N1 virus prior to its discovery, despite having been designed two years before the emergence of that pathogen.
Since that time, TessArae has proven the technology equally effective in sequencing diploid DNA. In addition to its Microbial Identification focus, TessArae has now developed several assays addressing Human Genetic Diseases in both the Perinatal and Cancer Genetics markets.