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Tucson, Ariz.-Area Optics Firms Look to Collaborate with Biotech Researchers

Posted on: Thursday, 12 June 2003, 06:00 CDT

Jun. 12--Local optics firms are looking to collaborate with University of Arizona researchers on developing optical products for the biotechnology industries after a meeting last week.

Biomedical researchers from the UA, optics officials and biotech business developers who met at a "bio-optics round table" hosted by Breault Research Organization last week said optics is playing an increasingly vital role in biotech.

John Koshel, manager of optical engineering services for Breault, said the firm is working on technologies that may be applicable to biotech research.

Based on Breault's light-analysis technology, devices used to measure light might be used to identify biological agents, Koshel said.

Among the biotech areas under study at Breault, he said, are an optical means of glucose measurement; illumination and imaging for surgical instruments; and light-source modeling for biophotonics, or the study of the interaction between biological materials and light.

Several UA researchers said optics is emerging as a major component of biotech research.

Stuart Williams, a UA professor who, as chairman of the university's biomedical engineering program, coordinates biotech research across several colleges, cited current research on neural engineering, diagnostic and regenerative medicine, biomaterials, biosensors, bioimaging and biomechanical devices for diagnostics and rehabilitation.

"This is a huge area," Williams said of biomechanical devices. "We can build, into very, very small systems, optical diagnostic devices."

Williams and other round-table participants said it was a good start for more collaboration between the area's optics and biotech industry clusters.

Breault CEO Kathleen Perkins said the company plans to develop custom image-processing software as part of its ASAP light-analysis program.

"There's a real significant need in the bio industry for better protocol and automation and standardizing of image processing and transfer," she said.

Michael Stevenson, Breault market researcher and author of OpticsReport, said other areas of collaboration include image enhancement software to help researchers and doctors identify cancerous tumors through blood-flow analysis.

Image-interpretation software is "just the data bridge that researchers need to get their technologies out of the lab and into clinical settings," Stevenson said, adding that researchers are increasingly thinking in terms of developing commercial products.

A doctor who works with a local optics firm said medical optics technologies are quickly moving beyond diagnostics to advanced therapeutic tools.

"They're talking about going deep inside the body with these bio-optics machines," said Dr. Larry Marsteller, a UA-educated physician and director of medical products for CDEX Inc. in Tucson.

CDEX, based in Rockville, Md., is developing X-ray and ultraviolet explosives-detection systems for military and homeland-defense applications and an optical pill-identification system.

The company's principal scientist, former UA Steward Observatory researcher Wade Poteet, said he hopes to collaborate with UA scientists on new biological detection technologies.

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(c) 2003, The Arizona Daily Star. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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