JUNE 18, 2003
ISCA TECHNOLOGIES AWARDED NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH GRANT FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF AUTOMATED MOSQUITO IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM TO SUPPORT TIMELY DECISION-MAKING

ISCA Technologies (Riverside, CA) has been awarded $100,000 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I program for the research and development of "Automated Mosquito Identification System to Support Timely Decision-Making."

The overall goal of this research and development project is to overcome the key bottleneck in mosquito trap data management, namely the identification to species of individual mosquitoes to obtain the relative measurement of field mosquito populations. ISCA is developing a device that automates mosquito identification, count, registering the trap-catch electronically thus facilitating data management and reporting so as to support on-time decision-making. ISCA anticipates that this mosquito monitoring system will work autonomously.

Without the down time cost associated to handling and processing the trap catches, ISCA's automated ID device will significantly increase the productivity of field personnel. One of the advantages would be the possibility of having extra monitoring points to target areas, thus providing better detail and coverage of areas sampled.

Automation could result in earlier detection of mosquito populations, which, if followed by timely control measures, could increase the efficacy of current mosquito abatement programs. The continuous, orderly stream of field data to Moritor's centralized database, in conjunction with the availability of powerful geographical and statistical tools residing in the same site, will foster more frequent data exploration and data mining. This large database could reveal patterns that would otherwise be too elusive. The result will be the generation of a new knowledge base in the field of vector control.

ABOUT THE NIH SMALL BUSINESS INNOVATION RESEARCH (SBIR) PROGRAM

The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program is a Congressionally-mandated program for domestic small business concerns to engage in Research/Research and Development (R/R&D) that has the potential for commercialization. The SBIR program was established under the Small Business Innovation Development Act of 1982. Federal agencies with extramural research and development budgets over $100 million are required to administer SBIR programs using an annual set-aside of 2.5% for small companies to conduct innovative research or research and development (R/R&D) that has potential for commercialization and public benefit.

The objective of Phase I is to establish the technical merit and feasibility of the proposed R/R&D efforts and to determine the quality of performance of the small business awardee organization prior to providing further Federal support in Phase II. Support under Phase I is normally provided for six months/$100,000 for SBIR and one year/$100,000 for STTR.