Daniele Triva, Copan CEO

Biography

Daniele Triva, Copan CEO

Daniele Triva is a chemical engineer with special interest in the flow dynamics and rheology of the biological process.

In 1979 he established in Brescia, Copan Italia, a company that manufactures collection and preservation devices for analysis in microbiology. Mr. Triva used his extensive knowledge and ability to integrate different technological processes to create effective and innovative solutions in pre-analytics.

In 1995 Mr. Triva established Copan Diagnostics, a USA company that distributes the Copan microbiological specimen's collection and preservation devices in North and South America, and in Canada.

In 2003 Mr. Triva established in Brescia, Micro-Rheologics, a company that uses an innovative flocking technology process to manufacture devices for use in pre-analytical applications for forensics, microbiology/virology and molecular investigations.

In April 2006 Mr. Triva received, from the Brescia Chamber of Commerce, the award of "CEO of the year" for the best innovative company of the year.

Enhancing the Microbiology Diagnostic Process for the Investigation of Infectious Diseases: a Role for Copan

To face the current growing demand of diagnostics we need rapid tests and automated diagnostic processes, allowing specimens to be processed through automation. Standardization of sample collection and preservation becomes critical to achieve automation for the Microbiology laboratory. Standardization of the collection device would allow freedom in choice of the diagnostics procedure. The standardized collection and preservation would also allow the specimens to be processed through different diagnostics guaranteeing easy comparisons of various analytical processes. This would also allow switching of different diagnostic products with minimal training. New collection and preservation devices for the Microbiology laboratory should be open and universal: open to work with all analytical processes; universal to collect and preserve all analytes.

The complexity and the discomfort of the collection can affect specimen accessibility and effectiveness of the microbiology investigation or surveillance program. Thanks to innovative technology now available we can produce collection devices which are friendly and easy to use so as to open the doors to the concept of the self obtained sample. The challenge at Copan is to design and produce appropriate collection devices for infected body sites without intimidating or causing discomfort or pain to the patient. Once the specimen is collected, it must be released from the swab in a transport medium that preserves the agent to be investigated and has no inhibitory substances or heavy suspension that often may create steric issues during amplification in culture or in nucleic acid amplification assays. The innovation is to use a quantitative approach to measure the specimen collected and extracted from the collection device allowing the analyte to show the best clean analytical signal with minimal quenching. The complexity of fluid dynamics involved in the collection and extraction of the specimen is often undervalued in our experience, and can be one of the major factors contributing to indeterminate or false negative results.

Copan has developed a very scientific approach for quality assessment and elimination of all possible interference in pre-analytics. Our challenge is to make sure that the proper ingredients are present in the transport medium to protect the specimen; live organisms for culturing, non viable antigen and nucleic acids for antigen detection and amplification methods. We have extensively researched the driving factors of pre-analytics, safe and easy sample collection, efficient extraction, preservation of the specimen and ergonomics of the sample process through full or semi automation. Our motto is "we don't make diagnostic assays; we just make them better!"