Photo by Rob Wills, The Northfield News Dr. Michael Sinclair of Microcheck stands beside a sterilizer, one of the many pieces of equipment that the company uses in their investigation of microbes and sequencing the DNA of bacteria and other microscopic things. The company has identified over 200,000 bacterial isolates since 1988. Microcheck has been in business here in Vermont for 21 years and has just signed an exciting contract to collaborate with the global company, Applied Biosystems, said Susan Sinclair, CEO.

Applied Biosystems is a division of Life Technologies Corporation, a global biotechnology tools company that is dedicated to improving the human condition. They sought out Dr. Michael Sinclair, the founder of Microcheck, to help them expand the fungal database of their DNA Sequencer.

Microcheck, located in the old Falls school, is an independent full service microbiology laboratory specializing in the identification of bacteria, fungi, yeasts, and actinomycetes.

Dr. Sinclair has applied his 30 years of experience as a mycologist specializing in fungal identification and classification to lead the company with a vision of helping laboratories improve the way they conduct microbial identification and make sure their labs are germ free said a press release which appeared in Microbiology News, a trade magazine for the industry.

These libraries contain information about bacteria and fungi, enabling users of Applied Biosystems' MicroSEQ® Microbial Identification System to perform accurate identifications said Dr. Sinclair.

Microbial identification is important because pharmaceutical companies need to monitor their manufacturing environment for the presence of bacteria and fungi. Those are just things that they don't want to have around if they are manufacturing drugs, said Dr. Sinclair.

A molecular approach to microbial identification has significantly improved identifying these microorganisms.

Part of effective molecular analysis is having comprehensive information in databases that are used to compare the molecular properties of microorganisms.

Microcheck has been at the forefront of expanding information about bacteria and fungi, enabling scientists to eliminate unknowns that could adversely affect the pharmaceutical manufacturing process.

"Many scientists are increasingly adopting molecular analysis to increase overall accuracy in microbial identification," said Dr. Sinclair.

"This is a critical time to give these microbiologists the most comprehensive information about fungal, yeast, actinomycete and bacterial identification. Our work with Applied Biosystems will ensure that pharmaceutical companies will continue to have access to the most comprehensive libraries for microbial identification."