Soft ray looks to save lives by developing rapid, low-cost system for detection of bacteria in blood platelets

Johnson, a University of Wyoming professor of physics since 1981, is venturing from the classroom to the boardroom with his biotechnology company SoftRay Inc., where he has created a lab instrument that can be used in hospitals and health clinics to detect bacteria in blood platelets or fungus in blood much earlier than current methodologies allow. And he is receiving assistance and expertise from the Wyoming Technology Business Center to make it happen.

"The WTBC has helped me develop a business plan. I've received feedback from venture capitalists and developed presentations to give to venture capitalists," says Johnson, who is currently in the pre-venture stage of his business idea. "They've helped me connect with a lot of people in the business community."

The WTBC is a statewide business development program (under the UW Office of Research and Economic Development) that is developing a technology business incubator and an outreach program focused on early-stage, high-growth companies. The 30,000-square-foot facility, which opened in 2006, offers laboratory, office and shared-conference room space for client companies as well as a state-of-the-art data center.

Johnson has created a technology he calls FountainFlow cytometry, which is used for measuring microorganisms in food, water and human blood. The platform technology can be used to detect environmental or drinking water contamination, fungus in the blood and bacteria in blood platelets -- and more quickly than current detection methods, Johnson says.

Platelets are the cells in human blood which cause blood to coagulate upon exposure to air. Platelets are used for transfusions for hospital patients who have undergone trauma or bled out; or for people who are immune-compromised, meaning their bodies cannot naturally produce platelets on their own.

Johnson says his technology -- which he began working on approximately six years ago because he wanted to make a significant societal impact -- can detect fungal infection in blood within a few hours compared to the current methodology, such as culturing, which takes 1-3 days to diagnose a form of fungus. That can be the difference between life and death for a patient who has gone into septic shock. A person can die from septic shock within 1-24 hours while current diagnosis typically takes 48-72 hours, Johnson says.

"A person's survival rate depends critically on quick diagnosis and treatment," Johnson says. "With our current FountainFlow platform technology, we will be able to make a diagnosis within 1-2 hours. And the physician will be able to use the appropriate drug regimen to save the person's life."

This video is not supported by your browser at this time.

In his technology, Johnson says a fluid, such as blood or water, is mixed with chemicals. It is then pumped through the hoses of the instrument. The fluid is illuminated, using light from an LED. A dye is added to the fluid, which allows Johnson to pinpoint the microorganisms he's specifically interested in detecting. When the microorganisms are illuminated with the ultra-bright LED light, the microorganisms glow. A camera, which is part of the instrument, captures video frames of that fluid flow. A computer can analyze those frames to count the number of glowing particles in the images. It then determines the number of particles per volume in the fluid flow. This process allows the physician to determine the level of infection.

"Camera technology and LED technology have both become cheaper and more powerful," Johnson says. "I've managed to ride both of those waves to develop an instrument that can conduct cell detection."

Johnson currently is conducting his research with Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins and Bonfils Blood Center in Denver. Poudre Valley Hospital is a 241-bed regional medical center which serves northern Colorado, southern Wyoming and western Nebraska. Bonfils operates six community donor centers; serves nearly 200 health care facilities in Colorado and beyond; and collects nearly 154,000 units of blood annually, according to its website.

While Johnson conducts his research at his laboratory in UW's Physical Sciences Building and at Bonfils -- with the aid of National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants -- he stressed that the WTBC and its facilities have been invaluable to his efforts.

"There is a lot of commercialization with something as complicated as this device. It requires meeting with (people in the) business and scientific fields," Johnson says. "I've been able to meet with people very good at dye development, and those that have to work with blood and blood platelets. I'm constantly getting feedback. They (WTBC) really care about the success of their clients."

He adds, "The great thing about the WTBC is we have a group of people intimately familiar with high-tech business development. It's really great to have someone identify problems. Before, I felt isolated. They (WTBC) have a lot of experience."

Johnson said he has lived and learned with a previous Laramie-based business venture, First Magnitude Corp., he started. First Magnitude marketed electronic, high-sensitive cameras used for research. While that company proved profitable, Johnson admitted to some business mistakes.

"We were attracting the high end of the market, but we didn't have the patents" for the technology, Johnson recalls. "If you don't have the patents, you get taken over rapidly by the big boys."

When he started SoftRay, Johnson shuttered First Magnitude Corp. And he vowed to learn from that experience.

While UW owns the patent on Johnson's technology, Johnson has an exclusive license on the patent, which means he owns the rights to market the technology.

Johnson says he is still mulling whether he would want to manufacture the technology himself or provide a license to a large corporation with production and manufacturing facilities already in place.

"I would like to be a Laramie-based company for the foreseeable future. The bio-detection industry is growing and is in excess of $30 billion annually," Johnson says. "I'd like to be a major player in the bio-detection industry."

In addition to the health care industry, Johnson sees other potential market applications -- including detection of contamination in food and water products -- for his technology.

"We're interested in licensing technology," he says. "If someone would want to use it for bottled water, that would be huge. The sky's the limit."

Provided by University of Wyoming

Making germs glow: New test helps save lives and cuts costs

 Replacing conventional laboratory tests with a new DNA sequence-based technology to identify pathogens causing bloodstream infections dramatically lowered mortality and health-care costs, a clinical study conducted by an interdisciplinary UA research team found.

Unlike conventional laboratory tests, a new technology called PNA-FISH is designed to rapidly identify bloodstream pathogens by their genetic code. Results are available within hours instead of days providing pharmacists and physicians with information they can use to rapidly customize antimicrobial treatment for patients with infections.

PNA-FISH is an abbreviation for “peptide nucleic acid fluorescence in situ hybridization.” Rapid reporting of PNA FISH results to pharmacists and physicians cut the mortality of ICU patients with enterococcus or streptococcus bloodstream infections by almost half and slashed mortality from yeast infections by 86 percent. In addition, the intervention resulted in healthcare cost reduction of almost $5 million per year.

The interdisciplinary research team recently presented its results at the 51st Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in Chicago.

"Our goal was to decrease mortality for patients with bloodstream infections, and we achieved that goal through a strong collaboration among research scientists at the UA's BIO5 Institute, clinical microbiology laboratory scientists at University of Arizona Medical Center, and an interdepartmental collaboration among the clinical laboratory, infectious disease pharmacy and physicians," said Donna Wolk, an associate professor at the UA's College of Medicine, who led the study. Wolk is division chief of clinical and molecular microbiology in the department of pathology at the UA.

Every year, more than 875,000 patients are diagnosed with bloodstream infections in the U.S., resulting in more than 90,000 deaths and significant costs to the health-care system.

According to Wolk, bloodstream infections can be difficult to treat because conventional diagnostic laboratory methods often require days to identify slow-growing bacteria and confirm which antimicrobials will work best. That lag-time forces physicians to prescribe broad-spectrum antibiotics until laboratory results can confirm the pathogen identity and antibiotic effectiveness patterns.

Overuse of antibiotics can lead to toxic side effects and disruption of the body's normal flora or beneficial bacteria, which can also lead to other infections.

The study assessed patients with positive blood cultures admitted to UA Medical Center-University Campus between August 2007 and March 2011. Outcomes and costs for 722 patients were analyzed, of which, 344 had PNA FISH performed. Board certified clinical microbiologists tested blood cultures and reported PNA FISH results to infectious disease pharmacists and physicians.

In conventional tests for bloodstream infections, clinical microbiologists typically take a blood sample from the patient, mix it with a liquid growth medium and incubate it to stimulate microbial growth.

Once the microbes present in the sample have multiplied to large numbers, some of the liquid is transferred to a petri dish filled with solid agar growth medium and placed into an incubator to allow the growth of distinct and recognizable microbe colonies.

"It's a bit like a gardener waiting to pick the flowers," Wolk explained.

"It takes about a day to cultivate the fluid and at least another day to see the individual bacteria colonies on the agar. Once we see them growing, we can pick one to perform a biochemical profile, which identifies the pathogen and the best antibiotics to use, but that process wastes precious time."

PNA-FISH, on the other hand, bypasses this process. It uses fluorescent molecules tagged to genetic sequences that match those in the microbe. When added to a dried drop of blood culture containing pathogens, sequences that find their match inside the microbe stick, while those that don't are washed away. The process is not unlike placing a key into a lock – only the right key will fit.

Once the tagged genetic sequences link up, a clinical scientist views the slide under a special microscope that makes the fluorescent tags visible. The microbes' identity is confirmed by the color of their fluorescence.

"The tagged pathogens will glow, different colors for different microbes – it's like fireworks under our microscope," Wolk said, "and we feel a Fourth of July excitement because we know our laboratory is helping to save the lives of people in our community."

Wolk recognizes the importance of a university-based bench to bedside translational research approach to diagnosis of infections. With a vision that began in late 2006, she directs the BIO5's Infectious Disease Research Core Laboratory, or IDRC, where research scientists participate in clinical trials to verify the accuracy of new technology.

The IDRC works with bioindustry sponsors like AdvanDX, the manufacturer of PNA FISH, to obtain approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to use the technology for patient care. Since its inception, IDRC has participated in more than 16 clinical trials in which research staff focus on developing faster and more precise diagnostic tests aimed at detecting and preventing infectious diseases and public health threats.

After a clinical trial, the next step in the translational pipeline is to assess which technology is most likely to benefit critically ill patients and move that technology from the research to the highly standardized and regulated hospital setting at UAMC. There, medically board-certified clinical laboratory scientists perform testing to quickly identify pathogens and relay information to pharmacists and physicians.

"The collaboration between the UA's pathology department and UA's BIO5 Institute was essential for us to establish a national model of bench-to-bedside laboratory practices," Wolk added. "Our collective translational capabilities are very unique and provide a long-awaited missing link for translating molecular microbiology methods into clinical microbiology laboratories for improving patient care."

"At the IDRC, our motto is simple," she said: "'Advancing diagnostics, saving lives.' We are very proud of the contribution our team makes, helping to improve the quality and efficiency of health care in our community and across the globe."

Provided by University of Arizona (news : web)

MIND Reviews: The Moral Lives of Animals

The Moral Lives of Animals
by Dale Peterson. Bloomsbury Press, 2011

In the summer of 2000 scientists saw a young elephant collapse and die on a trail in the African forest. In the following hours, elephants passing by attempted to help and revive her by lifting her dead body off the ground.

In The Moral Lives of Animals, Tufts University lecturer Dale Peterson argues that this kind of behavior provides evidence that humans are not the only animals that developed a sense of morality—other mammals, among them elephants, dolphins and chimpanzees, also have strong impulses for cooperation, kindness and fairness. Peterson, a long-time collaborator of primatologist Jane Goodall, makes the case that the morality of animals, such as humans, requires obeying certain social rules and evolved as a means to mediate conflicts that inevitably arise within communities.

Peterson asserts that animals are capable of exhibiting moral behaviors because these behaviors do not require advanced intellectual capabilities—they only result from strong emotional ­responses: “A bully makes you angry. A cheater leaves you depressed.” Some of Peterson’s stories illustrate animal emotions vividly, such as accounts of elephants committing suicide. Peterson writes that loggers in Myanmar (Burma) capture and train elephants to help with timber extraction. The taming procedure can be so distressing to the animals that some cut off their own air supply by stepping on their trunks.

Peterson also presents evidence that mammals can distinguish right from wrong. For example, a primatologist at a Tanzanian research site once tried to distract a chimp by pretending he had seen something intriguing in the distance. The chimp fell for the deception and went to explore but soon returned and slapped the mischievous primatologist on the head. Peterson interprets the chimp’s reaction as evidence that he recognized the researcher’s deceit as immoral and punished him.

Although the underlying motivations for many of these behaviors are a matter of interpretation, Moral Lives is a thought-provoking read that glimpses into the minds and behaviors of mammals.