Microsens has adapted the polymeric ligand technology to bind Mycobacterium tuberculosis cells with high affinity. The TB-ligand system can be used to easily and rapidly isolate TB from patient samples. TB mycobacteria can be captured from sample types such as sputum using ligand-coated paramagnetic beads. The captured mycobacteria can then be stained directly for diagnosis by microscopy, or eluted and detected using molecular techniques.