Local company sheds light on drug research

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Speeding vaccines to the market means finding ways to grow almost anything in a hurry, and one Baltimore firm is positioned to help that effort.

Fluorometrix develops light-based probes that can measure pH, dissolved oxygen, carbon dioxide and other conditions that affect the growth of microbes without interfering with their growing environment. “You need technology that will allow you to culture cells under a variety of different conditions and see which conditions are most effective,” said Govind Rao, professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and developer of the fluorescent technology.

Breeding enough bacteria or viruses to provide large scale vaccinations takes nine months to two years, Rao said. His technology — which is already being produced by two sub-licensers — should be able to shave months or years off of that time by helping eliminate unproductive cultures more quickly. Culturing cells in glass also will play a key role in interpreting the human genome as researchers race to find out what triggers various parts of our DNA.

The effort involved in set-up, sensor calibration and sterilization makes traditional sensors too labor-intensive to be convenient, Rao said.

The three-person company grossed about $500,000 last year in products and licensing, said president Joe Qualitz, and has moved out of the University of Maryland Baltimore County’s tech incubator program.

Fluorometrix is co-located in Baltimore and Stow, Mass.

Cellphase, their low-cost non-invasive oxygen sensor, is now in use by more than 100 major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, according to the Fluorometrix Web site.

Their next product, the High Throughput Bioreactor, will allow a dozen simultaneous experiments to be conducted while monitoring oxygen, pH and optical density — a measure of cell mass.

khille@baltimoreexaminer.com

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