APVS Applied Visual Sciences Inc (CE)

Signature Mapping Medical Sciences, Inc., a subsidiary of Applied Visual Sciences, Inc. (OTCBB: APVS), announced today that it has received its first order for three TBDx™ automated tuberculosis (TB) diagnostic systems from the Aurum Institute for Health Research in South Africa. The TB automated diagnostic systems will be deployed in a mobile laboratory environment as part of project aimed at bringing diagnosis and treatment closer to the point-of-care, a major objective of the World Health Organization in its fight against the spread of tuberculosis. The project will examine the impact that mass population screening will have on the transmission and growth of the disease as the mobile labs reach remote areas considered as having high incidence rates.

TBDx accurately provides a highly sensitive diagnosis of tuberculosis - well beyond the capabilities of the human technician -- within minutes, at a very low cost and with minimal human intervention, making it an ideal mass screening and point-of-care tool in countries with high burdens of TB. Its fully automated slide management system eliminates the need for a human to look at diagnostic slides through a microscope.

"As the results from the TBDx clinical trials in South Africa were being finalized over the past several months, our development team has been focused on the creation of operational enhancements to TBDx," stated Bill Donovan, President and COO. "We have improved the quality of the images captured, reduced the image capture time from approximately six minutes per slide to two minutes per slide, added powerful visualization tools to the decision support module, and enhanced the ease of use by providing an entirely touch-screen solution. We are very pleased that Aurum will be the first to deploy this latest version of the TBDx system."

The TBDx systems are being procured through funding by the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). PEPFAR aims to save the lives of those suffering from HIV/AIDS and related infection diseases around the world. PEPFAR is driven by a shared responsibility among donor and partner nations and others to make smart investments to save lives. Its goal is to save the greatest number of lives by increasing and building upon what works, and then, supporting countries as they work to improve the health of their own people through expanded access to prevention, care and treatment.

About TBDx The SM TBDx solution combines Applied Visual Sciences highly sensitive and specific image analysis software with an automated slide loader capable of processing 200 slides without human intervention, a bar code reader, an automated microscope stage navigator to process the slide through the capture of 100 fields of view (FOV), and an auto-focus camera to digitally capture each FOV. SM TBDx manages and synchronizes the hardware components for hands-free slide acquisition and TB detection analysis. A video of the TBDx automated solution is available at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn6k5YxhFjU.

About Aurum Institute The Aurum Institute is an internationally recognized African research and health systems organization, dedicated to making a major impact in the fight against TB and HIV. For more information go to www.auruminstitute.org.

About Applied Visual Sciences, Inc. Applied Visual Sciences, Inc. is the holding company and IT development organization for subsidiaries specializing in high-performance imaging analysis technologies and advanced analytics for automated recognition of targets of interest. Applied Visual Sciences' subsidiaries include Guardian Technologies International, Inc., a homeland security/defense technology entity, and Signature Mapping Medical Sciences, Inc., a healthcare technology entity. The company is quoted on the OTC Bulletin Board under the symbol APVS.

Safe Harbor statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Statements in this news release looking forward in time involve risks and uncertainties, including the risks associated with the effect of changing economic conditions, capital raising activities, trends in the markets, variations in the company's cash flow, competition, business development efforts, technology availability and cost of materials and other risk factors. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are discussed in the Company's most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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CONTACT: For Applied Visual Sciences: William Donovan +1 703-464-5495 For Signature Mapping Medical Sciences Sean Kennedy +1 703-464-5495 For Media: Julie Shepherd of Accentuate PR +1 815-479-1833