Tech Transfer Newsletter October 2008

About American BioOptics

Co-founded by Vadim Backman of Biomedical Engineering and clinicians from Evanston Northwestern Healthcare (ENH) in 2006, with an exclusive license of a patent portfolio from Northwestern University and ENH, American BioOptics (ABO) is a medical device company located in Evanston, Illinois.

American BioOptics seeks to commercialize optical technologies for the detection of colorectal cancer in its earliest stages. The company will utilize Four-Dimensional Elastic Light-Scattering Fingerprinting (4D-ELF) to quantitatively analyze structures in human cells that are 10 to 20 times smaller than can be seen with microscopy. The intent is to develop an office-based, no-prep, highly accurate colon screening test.

Find out more at the American BioOptics web site.

A Novel Technology for Water Treatment

Applied Process Technologies, Inc. was granted an exclusive license to Professor Bruce Rittmann’s innovative hollow fiber Membrane Biofilm Reactor (MBfR) system and related novel processes, for commercial water treatment applications. These included the removal of nitrates, perchlorates, and various halogenated and non-halogenated contaminants from ground water, drinking water, and industrial waste water. The MBfR’s uniqueness lies in its autotrophic nature and use of hollow fibers, and offers considerable environmental and cost advantages when compared with ion exchange, reverse osmosis, and traditional biological treatment systems.

The MBfR’s reductive nature is expected to complement the licensee’s existing oxidative technology platform, and together these two very different treatment solutions are believed to enable Applied Process Technologies, Inc. to address a vast range of contaminants at a given treatment site without generating waste concentrates. MBfR by itself has been used in redox mode to remove ammonia.

The MBfR has been demonstrated to effectively reduce nitrates and perchlorates that are not adequately removed using traditional treatment methods. Nitrates are ubiquitous and render certain health risks, and perchlorate, a rocket fuel chemical, is reportedly in the water supplies of 20 states across the United States and has been assigned drinking water action level of 6 ppb in California and 2 ppb in Massachusetts. In addition, MBfR also eliminates chlorinated solvents such as trichloroethylene (TCE) and dibromochloropropane (DBCP), as well as bromate, selenate, radionuclides, chromate and other heavy metals.

The MBfR has immediate applications as a remediation technology, shows promise for treatment of industrial process waters, and is expected to qualify as a drinking water treatment technology. It has also shown great potential for treating concentrated waste streams from ion exchange and reverse osmosis systems, both of which produce waste concentrates that require decontamination. Bruce Rittmann continues to advance his work in this field at Arizona State University (ASU), where he moved in January 2005, and some of the new advances may have joint ownership rights with Northwestern and ASU.

Inhibition of Angiogenesis

In the last decade considerable advances were made at the Feinberg School of Medicine in the field of angiogenesis, a process by which new blood vessels are formed. Selective inhibition of angiogenesis is expected to starve tumor cells that depend on a blood supply to survive and to prevent abnormal blood vessel growth that accompanies certain ocular diseases.  Pigment Epithelial Derived Factor (PEDF), a potent inhibitor of angiogenesis is a potential therapeutic for the treatment of ocular diseases such as macular degeneration. Northwestern owns the patent rights for the use of PEDF to inhibit angiogenesis while the National Institute of Health (NIH) owns the patent rights to the PEDF composition.

The utility of PEDF as a potent inhibitor of angiogenesis was first discovered by Professor Noel Bouck, formerly of Microbiology-Immunology. Northwestern licensed its patent portfolio to GenVec Corporation in 2000 to develop PEDF for the treatment of ocular diseases, including macular degeneration, and clinical trials are in progress using gene therapy for intraocular delivery of PEDF.

Another one of Professor Bouck’s inventions resulting from a collaborative research effort with a major pharmaceutical company included a small peptide that proved to be an effective inhibitor of angiogenesis. Northwestern’s right to the joint patent covering the composition, method, and use of this inhibitor was exclusively licensed to the company.  Additional inhibitors with improved pharmacokinetic properties have been developed by the company.  Phase II clinical trials were completed for several types of cancer, and licensee has initiated the development and planning of Phase III trials. A year ago a new license was granted to the same company for developing the peptide inhibitor for the veterinary market.