LuminUltra, Microbe Detectives form multi-year partnership

LuminUltra, a Canada-based firm providing microbiological monitoring and control solutions, and Microbe Detectives, a Wisconsin-based firm provider of applied metagenomics services for water and wastewater systems, have entered into a multi-year partnership.

With this partnership, the two firms will merge their services to provide commercial offering that can measure and monitor microbiological concentration in real-time.

The services will also help identify almost 100% of microorganisms found in water.

This information will enable operators of water system to understand why control was lost and how to prevent such issues in the future.

The offering of combined solution can cut down risk as well as costs for customers in drinking water, wastewater and manufacturing industries.

The combined solution will be available through LuminUltra’s existing, sales and distribution channels.

LuminUltra CEO Pat Whalen said: "Microbiological contamination of water processes can have a number of negative impacts, including infrastructure deterioration, poor product quality, environmental contamination and human health risks.

"Over the past 13 years, LuminUltra has been providing a solution that enables a more proactive approach to solving such problems. We believe that Microbe Detectives’ advanced metagenomics testing and reporting services will add significant value to our customers in helping to not only solve problems when they arise, but also prevent future occurrences."

LuminUltra offers real-time, on-site microbiological monitoring and control products and services, which are based on its 2nd Generation Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) technology.

This technology offers fast and accurate way of quantifying total microbiological activity in water and wastewater processes, which in turn enables operators to take real-time action to mitigate microbiological problems.

Once microbiological activity is found above prescribed levels, Microbe Detectives then can apply next-generation DNA sequencing technology as well as proprietary methods to find almost 100% of the microorganisms present, then accordingly organize them as per their functional properties, and then indicate the proportions of particular microorganism types present.

Microbe Detectives CEO John Tillotson said: "The water microbiome is a fascinating, very important, and largely unexplored world.

"This new partnership will empower innovators in water with an unprecedented opportunity to gain new insights and advance the performance of their products and systems with a single-source solution."