Speedy pathogen test kit ready for field testing

What began as an efficient solution to lengthy pathogen testing initiated by two Saskatoon-based entrepreneurs will now be coming to a field near you. PathoScan is a pathogen testing kit, boasting results within an hour of taking a sample—all able to be accomplished right in the field. The company received a major financial boost recently being an Agtech Growth Fund recipient—the ag-tech focused version of the Saskatchewan Advantage Innovation Fund. PathoScan received $75,000, a fantastic boost for the local company.

“Grant recipients like PathoScan get a portion of the funding upfront and the rest of the grant is based on certain development goals,” explained Kari Harvey, CEO of Innovation Saskatchewan. “For PathoScan specifically, a major goal for them in this project is to conduct field trials and refine their product based on the data collected from the trials.”

What the minds behind PathoScan had developed caught the attention of Innovation Saskatchewan, making the decision to back the company an easy one.

“Through Innovation Saskatchewan’s regular engagements with ag producers and others in the ag industry, we heard that quicker disease detection was a need in the sector,” Harvey said. “When we heard PathoScan had a potential solution to the problem, we got in touch with them to encourage them to apply.”

The World-Spectator caught up with Tayab Soomro, one of PathoScan’s founders and CEO. He, along with Scientific Lead and co-founder Ethan Done, have taken their dream from concept to physical solution—on the cusp of field trials this year.

What the duo have designed is a portable test kit that’s rugged, easy to use, and provides quick answers. Knowing whether or not a pathogen exists in a sample can help producers make more informed decisions—saving time and money in the process. Following is the interview with Tayab Soomro:

What’s the story of PathoScan? How did it start and where did this idea come from?

After I finished my master’s in Agriculture at Dalhousie University, I came back to Saskatoon. Here, I attended a program called Co.Hack Hackathon by Co.Labs and met the other co-founder, Ethan Done. It was his idea that was presented.

Ethan and I got together and worked on the idea, spending the weekend doing market research, fleshing out the idea, and creating a presentation. At the end of the weekend, we pitched the idea to the judges and ended up winning first place. That came with a $3,000 cash prize, and that actually is what kick started us.

Everything else sort of trickled from there. We participated in various pitches—some we won, some we didn’t—but it was a lot of learning that we got from that.

I heard that you were also involved in Opus at the U of S.

Opus is an accelerator by the University of Saskatchewan that’s promoting an entrepreneurial spirit in students. We applied for their Idea2Build program, got in, and it has been a tremendous help. They not only help financially, but they also provide resources like business consulting and bringing in mentors.

Both Ethan and I, coming from a science background, didn’t necessarily have a lot of business experience to begin with. So this is something we struggled with initially—we know the science, but how do we make sure we do the business side, right? That’s essentially where Opus helps!

We have also had demo days with them, which is basically an opportunity to showcase our technology. It’s very immersive and exciting. Besides Opus, we are also part of the Cultivator’s AgTech Accelerator program that’s over in Regina. Between Opus, Cultivator, other mentors, and casual chats over coffee with the business partners and startup supporters in the ecosystem have really helped us.

Networking is so vital. Something as innocuous as a cup of coffee can turn into something big.

That’s true.

This seems like solving a major problem. I was wondering if you could walk me through how your device works and what the concept is, because to send a sample away for testing in a lab—that could take weeks.

The current problem is up to about 20 to 25 per cent of the world’s crop production is lost every year due to preventable plant diseases. These diseases have very narrow diagnostic windows, so immediate results are really important, but the current lab facilities that exist take far too long to be useful for some of these farmers. It takes days to weeks sometimes to get the results back. By that time, the crops are already dead. Farmers need a technology that provides results quickly and cost effectively. So that’s our motivation to develop PathoScan. With our device, farmers can test for any crop anywhere without any technical background, and they can get the results within 40 minutes to an hour.

That’s amazing—to have something that jam-packed with technology, but easy enough to utilize.

That’s one of the other things that we really work hard to do is make it as simple as possible. Current technologies that exist require at least a biochemistry degree or some sort of agronomy background to be able to run these tests. We tried to make this as simple as possible that anybody without any technical background should be able to operate this. Much like Covid test kits—we all had these kits in our homes, we were able to test for it without knowing a lot of biochemistry. So that’s sort of the idea.

I’m envisioning a moisture tester, where you just throw in the sample, flick a switch, dial it in, and now you know your moisture content. Is this pretty much the same thing; take a sample, and there’s your test?

Exactly. The device is shaped like a box, and we like to call it PathoBox. Inside, there are basically sockets or grooves for the farmer to put the sample for the tube in. That tube actually contains a sample in it. There’s a few steps for preparation for that tube, once the tube is prepared, you put it into this device, and you flick the switch on. That starts the reaction and in 40 minutes, there will be a sound signal on your cell phone telling you that the pathogen is present or not. We’re detecting the colour change in the tubes, and based on that we’re determining whether the pathogen is present. The upshot to using cell phones is that you actually get the report right on your cell phone so you can send it to your agronomist or any ag consultant that you’re working with.

That’s amazing. So you don’t even have to be watching this device, you can just get an alert on your phone and you could be out doing something else, getting into the next field. How long did it take for you and Ethan to develop this idea?

This idea was basically conceived by Ethan, so he’s worked on it quite a long time, just mentally conceptualizing this. I jumped on board during the Hackathon in October, and then after that is where we actually materialized it into a product. And so between October, 2022 and now, we basically have been working nonstop.

I can appreciate you guys probably put in a lot of hours every day!

Juggling that and a full time job was not easy!

You recently received grant money from the AgTech Growth Fund. What’s that going to help with? Is that taking you to the next step now?

We’re really excited to be receiving that funding. That actually channeled into our R&D. Even though we have a prototype developed, there’s a lot more iterations that need to happen in the R&D for it to make it commercially viable. This summer, we’re actually going to be in the fields all across Saskatchewan, Alberta, and other provinces of Canada. In doing those field trials, we’re going to learn a lot about the things that we have to change and the feedback that we need to incorporate. That funding actually helps with the R&D part, to make it better over time, essentially.

I suppose right now you’re assembling a pool of producers to do that literal field testing?

That’s exactly right. We have a few clients on board. Quite a few, actually. And we’re always looking for more clients. We have created a form where we can onboard farm producers, so they can go to pathoscan.com/signup and they can sign up for a demonstration, and we’d love to get down there and get to work.

Is a larger pool of producers better for your results?

That’s exactly right. The more producers that we have, the more data points that we have and the more feedback we have, the faster we can make it better.

In terms of pathogens, is it a narrow scope of what you’re testing for, or is it wide open to everything?

Theoretically, yes, it is wide open to everything, just because of the nature of the technology. It’s a PCR technology, which means that it works with DNA. Practically every pathogen has DNA, so we can make it work with any pathogen, but for now—for the summer, at least—we’re focused on demonstrating with leaf diseases. The reason for that is we want to showcase the usability and the easiness of this tool. With leaf diseases, it goes for an easy demonstration. That’s what we’re hoping to do, and that’s really what our motivation is to focus on leaf diseases. So like powdery mildew, downy mildew, leaf spots, mold and things like that.

So you’ll be focusing on broadleaf crops then?

We’re focusing on broadleaf crops, we’re also focusing on canola. Sclerotinia (a fungal stem rot in canola plants) is one that we’re getting high demands of so we’re doing that, but mainly leaf disease.

With the signup for producers right now, would that be a free trial or would there be a cost for them to participate?

It’s in a cost-sharing fashion. We’d love to make it free, however, we need some way to compensate for that. Right now, we’re doing it on an ‘at-cost’ basis. So producers, farmers, and greenhouse producers, they basically share the cost for the amount of equipment required, for the use of biologicals. As long as those are covered, then we’re okay.

Is the PathoBox something that’s a ‘one use and done,’ or is it a fixture that you can add different tubes to?

There are two products, there is the PathoBox that’s a reusable tool. You just buy it once and you keep using it year over year. But then there’s these pathogen assay kits. These are pathogen specific and they’re designed for a single pathogen. They are essentially consumables that are bought again and again, for every disease that you want to test for.

The PathoBox is designed to be bouncing around in the truck, we have made it sturdy enough. It can connect with your 12V socket in the vehicle, it can operate with a portable charger, it can operate with an outlet, you can plug it into the wall. There are multiple ways to operate that.

Have you figured out a price point yet, once production starts and you’re selling these to Prairie farmers?

We are very close to doing that. Currently, we’re focused on the field trials so that we can actually get the data and make it better before we start mass producing and selling. Right now, we can say that it’s going to be 30 to 40 per cent cheaper than the current market solutions. I don’t have an exact price point, that comes after we have gone through the first set of field trials and have gathered some data and figured that out. But I can already see that it’s going to be a lot cheaper than what’s out there. And quicker.

That allows for some quick decision making for farmers.

That’s one of the biggest challenges. A lot of times farmers end up spraying regardless of whether they have a good reason to spray or not just because the cost for not spraying is really high. We also can’t discount the cost of spraying, because spraying costs a lot. If we can save even a single cycle of spraying or two cycles of spraying for a farmer, that’s a huge cost saving.

Do you think production would start taking place over the winter, or would you prefer maybe one more growing season?

It’s going to be an ongoing effort of field trials, even after we launch. We’re going to do a soft launch hopefully next summer, to be able to get this in the hands of some of the farmers for testing. The field trials are going to keep going because we are in the business of constantly improving it and constantly making sure that it fits the needs of the farmers. It’s going to be an ongoing effort. By next summer we’re hoping that this will be in the hands of farmers.

From a larger standpoint of predicting trends, you’d get a wide swath of the province to see where different pathogens are and what some of the hotspots are.

That’s right. I think that’s really valuable to know—where the Ministry of Agriculture should focus their attention, based on what we find, what trends we find. There are predictive models, of course, that tell us about where certain diseases are going to be prevailing, but this is a hardcore, precision ag-type data that we can have as a province.

The fact that this is a homegrown idea, it’s really putting Saskatchewan on the map in terms of our technological advancements.

I have a lot of people to thank, but one of them is the ecosystem that we have. I’m really grateful to have such awesome cheerleaders behind us. The folks that we have in Saskatoon and even in Regina that have built these systems and programs that help us get up the ladder. That’s really something that I would be remiss if I didn’t mention, because if programs like Opus and Cultivator did not exist, then it would be really tough for two local Saskatchewan residents to build something like this.

It’s such a huge launchpad. Do you see this as being something that the global market would be very interested in as well?

Totally. I think Saskatchewan is getting a spotlight in the world because of that, and I’m really excited. It’s a really exciting time right now.

So these long hours you’re putting in—they’re not going to go away for a while!

I keep telling myself that it’s going to get slower and slower, but no, it’s going to be quite a few long hours still! It’s the motivation that I have that keeps me going, and what makes it all possible is the conversations that I have with farmers pretty much every day about the problems that they are facing. That’s basically the main driver for me.

Ryan Kiedrowski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The World-Spectator