PRESS RELEASE

Shawn Gartside Joins MATRIX MicroScience as VP of Sales

MATRIX MicroScience Inc., (Golden, CO) has announced that Shawn Gartside has joined the company as Vice President of Sales. Shawn comes to MATRIX with extensive food microbiology experience in industry. Prior to joining MATRIX Shawn held a senior sales positions with one of the world's leading PCR companies and was also the Operations Manager for a network of contract analytical laboratories.

Shawn comments that "I am extremely excited to bring my expertise in PCR to the MATRIX Team especially with PATHATRIX being the only system successfully addressing the up-front selection and concentration of target organisms. The PATHATRIX system is extremely flexible in that it is compatible with a number of other rapid microbiological methods, and when applied in a sample pooling format, can literally save a company thousands of dollars in testing costs. The ease of use and rapid concentration of samples that the new Pathatrix- Auto system features will revolutionize how samples are prepared in the microbiology laboratory. I believe that my experience with PCR and a wealth of experience in food microbiology will help the industry embrace this technology as an integral part of their environmental, ingredient, and finished product testing programs."

Dr Adrian. Parton, C.E.O. of Matrix MicroScience commented "We are all very excited that Shawn has chosen to join our team as he brings with him a wealth of experience and an excellent reputation in the industry. I know that Shawn will be able to provide our customers with the outstanding levels of service that they are used to."

Matrix MicroScience

Matrix is a highly innovative company focused on the development of diagnostics for the rapid detection of food-borne pathogens such as Salmonella spp., Listeria spp., Campylobacter spp. Cronobacter spp., MAP and E.coli O157. Matrix has achieved multiple AOAC RI approvals for a range of its products, and is widely used and approved by multi-national companies, contract laboratories, regulators, and researchers. PATHATRIX® - AUTO has been developed in response to our customers increasing demand for automation.

Matrix MicroScience is an international organization with offices, research and production facilities in, Golden, CO, USA and. Newmarket, UK.

Background Notes for Editors

1. PATHATRIX® AUTO The PATHATRIX® AUTO system requires less than one minute hands-on time per test and utilises a proven technology, which can be adopted in any microbiology laboratory, with the minimum of retraining. Viable cultures are produced during the test allowing full and detailed analysis of any positive results.

PATHATRIX® is unique in that it is the only microbial detection system that can analyse large volumes of sample, by re-circulating the sample through a "capture phase" where the antibody coated magnetic beads are immobilised.

A standard 25-375g food sample is homogenised with 225-1000ml of growth media in a stomacher and incubated (4 -18hours). Post pre-enrichment PATHATRIX® capture reagent, which consists of antibody coated magnetic particles specific to the target pathogen, are then added to the sample. The sample is loaded onto the PATHATRIX® cartridge using a Matrix proprietary consumable pack, then the cartridge is inserted into the PATHATRIX® system and the process is started by the touch of a button.

Once loaded, the PATHATRIX® workstation is typically pre-programmed to run for 15 minutes..

The sample can now be plated directly onto selective media and incubated overnight for visualization the following morning or be directly analyzed by PCR, ELISA or Lateral Flow for a very rapid result.

There are a variety of PATHATRIX® tests that enable results to be obtained within as little as 5hrs to 24hrs from point of sample to result.

2. PATHATRIX® Pooling

PATHATRIX® pooling involves taking 10ml sub-samples from 5 individual samples, pooling them to create a 50ml pooled sample which can then be analyzed by a single PATHATRIX® run (see figure below). If the sample is "positive" the original individual samples can be re-tested separately by PATHATRIX® to determine which sample(s) is/are positive. However if the wet composite sample is shown to be negative no further analysis of the 5 original samples is required. Thus the PATHATRIX® pooling approach can be used as a rapid and cost effective screen for all samples. The Pooling strategy can be employed up to a maximum of 10 samples.

Explanation of Pathatrix Pooling Strategy