| "It is likely that many types of cells will be 'happier' in a microfluidic environment." PanVera President of R&D Robert Lowery |
Biomedical Engineering Assistant Professor David Beebe's microfluidic systems may make PanVera drug-discovery methods more efficient. Beebe (far right) joins PanVera Group Leader Mary Ozers, PanVera Vice President of R&D Robert Lowery (back) and biomedical engineering graduate student Glenn Walker in the company's University Research Park offices. (Photo by Bob Rashid)
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PanVera Corporation, a Madison-based University Research Park company that turns genetic information into tools for drug discovery, is a textbook example of how university-industry partnerships can be vital to a company's success. Founded in 1992, PanVera recently was acquired by pharmaceutical industry leader Aurora Biosciences Corporation, a publicly traded company based in San Diego. The merger will help put both companies at the leading edge of new drug development made possible by the Human Genome Project.
The company has many close collaborations with UW-Madison faculty, including Biomedical Engineering Assistant Professor David Beebe, who came here through the university's strategic hiring program. His partnership with the company began when PanVera scientists learned about Beebe's work with microfluidic systems, or "laboratories on a chip."
"A number of our scientists got excited about it and started thinking about how it could be used to improve the ways we manipulate cells and biomolecules for drug discovery," says Robert Lowery, vice president of R&D.
PanVera produces genetically engineered proteins and incorporates them into the high-throughput screening assays pharmaceutical companies use to test thousands of chemicals as potential drugs. "The microfluidics technology that Dave is developing has the potential to improve both our production process for recombinant proteins and the assay methods used to screen drug target proteins," says Lowery.
Currently the method with which PanVera scientists introduce DNA into cells is inefficient and imprecise, he says. "Using microfluidics gives us the ability to expose cells to pulses of highly concentrated DNA in a very accurate and precise manner," says Lowery. "This alone may improve the efficiency of DNA delivery into cells, and at the very least it will allow a much more systematic approach to optimizing the process."
In addition, tiny microfluidic environments made from "softer" materials are more like a cell's natural surroundings than hard-plastic petri dishes, says Lowery. "It's likely that many types of cells will be 'happier' in a microfluidic environment," he says. "They'll be more robust and will carry out more of their physiological functions." PanVera is one of more than 170 Wisconsin technology-based companies that have strong ties to UW-Madison people or research, according to a 1999 University-Industry Relations study. More than 100 of these firms have started in the last 10 years alone, reflecting the increased emphasis at UW-Madison on technology transfer.
One of PanVera's platform technologies, called fluorescence polarization, was pioneered by former UW-Madison pharmacy Professor Catherine Royer and is now licensed to PanVera. The company also assembled a scientific advisory board of UW-Madison researchers to help steer its development of drug discovery tools.
Other PanVera technologies are built around the research advances of biochemistry professors Jack Gorski, Alan Attie and Hector DeLuca on the expression of various medically important hormone receptors in humans.
These collaborations benefit both university and industry, says Lawrence Casper assistant dean of engineering and associate director of University-Industry Relations. "The PanVera relationship is an excellent example of UW-Madison and small Wisconsin manufacturers working together on a broad front of mutual interests in research and education," he says. "The university is constantly looking to expand these partnerships which contribute to the development of the Wisconsin economy."
--By Brian Mattmiller and Renee Meiller--
| For further information, please contact: |
David J. Beebe, 608/262-2260
djbeebe@wisc.edu
Copyright 2001 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
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Date last modified: Thursday, 31-May-2001 09:06:25 CDT
Date created: 31-May-2001
