© 1999 by Oxford University Press
Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Vol. 91, No. 15, 1276-1277,
August 4, 1999
© 1999 Oxford University Press
NEWS |
Company Lights Up Research
Forget poring over grant applications and spending hours refining the details of proposals. To fund its work in bioluminescence, one company has developed a new model that will allow the research to support itself — by selling a squirt gun that shoots glowing water.
Two doctors, originally from California, dreamed up the idea for Pittsburgh-based Prolume, Ltd., which was formed in late 1996. Gene Finley, M.D., an oncologist and president of Prolume, Ltd., and Bruce Bryan, M.D., Prolume's chief executive officer, recruited three other scientists to join the infant company in a venture that will use the sale of commercial products to fund research in bioluminescence. Future prospects may include a new method of tumor imaging.
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"We want to have a functional company and do research and development, but we don't want to do it through traditional means," said Finley, who was most recently at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and now works part time as an emergency room doctor. "People are fascinated by bioluminescence, and we want to bring that excitement to consumer products so everyone can enjoy it."
Nearly 80% of life in the deep sea has some form of luminescent quality, Finley said,
and the firm has a whole library of genetic information on some of these creatures that Bryan
collected from the ocean. Recently, researchers affiliated with the company cloned two new
green fluorescent proteins from soft coral, and identified and cloned three other enzymes called
luciferases.
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"If you go out and clone these things, you're dealing with genetic gold," said Christopher Szent-Gyorgyi, Ph.D., a molecular biologist with Prolume.
The desire to remove radioactivity from tracer technology has sparked interest in bioluminescence, said J. Woodland Hastings, Ph.D., professor of molecular and cellular biology at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
"Fluorescent and bioluminescent reporters are non-invasive," Hastings said. "You don't have to cut out cells, and it allows cells to continue on their normal path. It's a way to understand what genes are and how they interact."
In an experiment described in a 1997 research paper, a scientist working with Prolume injected a fluorescent-labeled antibody into a nude mouse with a tumor in its thigh. On a photograph of an imaging scan 2 days later, all of the antibody had localized to the tumor.
Bioluminescence may also allow scientists to record cell functions digitally, Szent-Gyorgyi said. "If changes in the properties of proteins are reflected as changes in output light, it enables you to go easily from cell interactions to digital information," he said.
In the meantime, the consumer end of the company has begun to market some of its products on its web site, such as glow-in-the-dark Alien Crystals. Finley said they hope to have the squirt gun, the product that was the original impetus for the company, on the market some time in 2000.
"I think we're on the verge of something fun," Finley said. "I think consumers will love this, and it will be an awesome product."
Bryan also recently received a patent for extracting bioluminescent compounds for use in toys and food. The company is developing a cake frosting that will glow a bright blue; however, use of bioluminescence in food is still pending approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Back in the lab, work continues to develop the technology for all these products, as well as to develop new biological research applications. All this from a surgeon, oncologist, chemist, molecular biologist, and biochemist.
"We're kind of a motley crew," Szent-Gyorgyi said. "We set out to sell a squirt gun, and we've managed to clone valuable new raw materials along the way."
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