A Diagnostics & Imaging Week

Electropure (Laguna Hills, California) reported that a majority of shareholders approved the sale of substantially all of the assets owned by and used in the operations of Electropure EDI to SnowPure (also Laguna Hills) and to immediately dissolve and terminate the corporate existence of Electropure EDI, a wholly owned subsidiary of Electropure.

The shareholders also voted to change the corporate name of Electropure Inc. to Micro Imaging Technology (MIT); and to approve the sale of the land and building owned by Electropure Holdings to an unaffiliated third party.

Electropure said that substantially all proceeds from the transactions will be invested in furthering product evolution of a non-biological microbe identification process developed by Electropure's wholly-owned subsidiary, MIT.

Described as easy to use, the MIT technology does not rely on conventional chemical processing, fluorescent tags or DNA analysis for rapid microbe identification. The company received a U.S. patent on the technology in 2002 and said it believes the technology may have significant market potential and could provide growth and long-term benefits for its shareholders.

MIT said it also is continuing to improve a laser-based technology for rapid microbe detection and identification. The system measures scattered light intensity as individual microbes pass through a laser beam. The intensity pattern of the scattered light is a consequence of the size, shape and external and internal optical characteristics of the microbe. By measuring the scattered light at specific angles, the system can detect and differentiate objects the size of bacteria.

MIT has constructed prototype systems that have demonstrated the ability to detect and immediately identify the microbes E. coli, Listeria, Salmonella staphylococcus aureus, Shigella and other pathogenic bacteria. A patent awarded in 2003 will be expanded with further R&D work.