Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have been busy fielding requests to use their microarray technology. The Microbial Detection Array can be used for a whole host of applications – from cancer research to identifying a plague victim from 14th Century England. Biologist Crystal Jaing says the applications for this technology are huge.

"We have used it for looking for food pathogens in food samples and recently, we applied it to agriculture to look at animal pathogens and food safety. It’s been really exciting using a technology like this to look at public health, look at environmental safety and look at food safety and drug safety."

There are even biodefense applications.

"Recently we have used this technology to analyze pathogens in wounded soldiers. And what we have found is that this technology is more sensitive than traditional technologies where very often a pathogen cannot be identified and that really delay how a soldier can be treated."