Hardy Diagnostics, a Santa Maria-based biomedical firm, recently released a new product to assist doctors in diagnosing urinary tract infections.

The product consists of a new formula that combines various chromogens with culture media into a Petri dish. Chromogens are chemical substances that change color in the presence of specific bacterial and fungal enzymes.

The new product, dubbed “HardyCHROM UTI,” uses color to detect microbial enzymes, simplifying the identification of the disease agent or pathogen.

Using the product, laboratory technologists can look for color changes that occur in the bacterial or fungal colonies on the Petri plate after only 24 hours of incubation.

The colors match up to various common causes of urinary tract infections, such as E. coli, proteus, klebsiella, pseudomonas, enterococcus, candida (yeast) and staphylococcus.

After nearly a year of intense study of chromogenic substances, Hardy researchers Rene Clasen and Wendy Phillips are now ready to release their latest creation.

Clasen is the director of Technical Services who has a background in public health microbiology and worked for Santa Barbara County for more than 20 years.

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Phillips recently completed her master's degree in microbiology at Cal Poly and has supervised the quality control lab at Hardy for more than a year.

Hardy Diagnostics is an FDA-licensed and ISO-certified manufacturer of medical devices for microbiological procedures in the clinical or industrial laboratory. More than 5,000 laboratories are serviced throughout the nation.

All the manufacturing takes place at the headquarters at 1430 W. McCoy Lane in Santa Maria, where the firm employs 140 workers.

For more information, visit www.HardyDiagnostics.com.