Breathing New Life Into Tier

Startups Are The Canvas Of 21st Century

By Todd McAdam

Business Writer

Battlefield microphones based on the ear of a parasitic fly. A cancer treatment with the help of research from a mechanical engineer. A medical trainer that's the direct descendant of a canvas and wire box now sitting in the Roberson Center.

All of them are part of biotechnology in Broome County. It's not just a new industry, it's a cluster of new industries that make e-commerce look like last week's news.

"Biotechnology is going to explode," said Bahgat Sammakia, a mechanical engineering professor at Binghamton University. "And many of these new elements will have hardware."

That explains Sammakia's involvement in cancer treatment. He and John Baust, a biology professor, are developing a probe to treat cancer - by freezing the cancer cells.

Biotechnology really isn't new: Powered flight has been around for 97 years, but owes some thanks to studies of a bird's wing. And helicopter rotor technology has a connection to how a bumblebee stays in the air.

But what is new is the intense focus Broome County is putting on it - from companies like Advanced Medical Simulations in Vestal to Binghamton University's effort to create a biotechnology incubator. (Think industrial incubator, not medical incubator.)

"It's to attract new types of industry to the area," said Frances Carr, Binghamton University's vice president for research. "Biotechnology is not only a national priority, but for the state of New York."

And for Binghamton University: "Industry in biotechnology isn't going to come to Binghamton if there aren't graduate programs, in particular."

Binghamton University is trying to pair the academic with the industrial by creating a biotechnology research facility and by snagging some of nearly $120 million in state funds for biotechnology research facilities.

"We'd like to foster a corporate research park," Carr said, and create a critical mass of researchers and companies to get the industry rolling. Ideally, she'd like to start right next door, at a building now owned by New York State Electric & Gas Corp.

But there's a catch: Binghamton University doesn't own the building, and NYSEG withdrew from a planned sale last summer when a variety of town, county and state politicians worried the $6.1 million sale would take too large a chunk out of the Town of Vestal's tax base.

Biology Professor Robert VanBuskirk, a principal in one of the new biotech companies, is adamant about the need for the building: "You get the building, I'll get the companies," he said.

That sounds good to Richard D'Attilio, executive director of the Broome County Industrial Development Agency. "Obviously, the closer it is to the university, the more synergistic it would be," he said. "And there aren't a whole lot of facilities for sale in this community that can be adapted."

But he sees both sides of the issue. University leaders want the facility next door for easy access - both as companies draw on university facilities and as students use company resources (Think of graduate students and post-doctoral researchers as the indentured servants of the academic world.). But how close does that need to be?

"We are a small community - close is relative," D'Attilio said. "The experts on this are the university people."

That's Carr; and she said that with the facility, she could draw three to four biotechnology companies. "We'll have the seeds for it in five years," Carr said.In fact, one has already been created - BioLife Solutions Inc., founded by John Baust and VanBuskirk, both biology professors.

"My vision is more than an incubator," Carr said. "I'm thinking on the Duke model or the Georgia Tech model."

Both universities not only created incubators, where research-heavy companies got their start, but developed entire industries based around the work their professors and students did.

Funds Available

The money to develop Binghamton University's center - be it at the NYSEG building or anywhere else, could come from $120 million the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research has set aside.

NYSTAR will give:

$95 million to help build or renovate research and development facilities.
$7.5 million to draw or keep research faculty.
$4.65 million to help colleges market high-technology innovations.
$350,000 to help start-up technology companies.

"It hasn't always been cost-effective to have your own, independent research facility," Carr said, but research is one of the reasons a university like BU exists. "We have industrial researchers working side-by-side with academic researchers."

Graduates Involved

That's why you'll find graduate students puttering around at BioLife Solutions Inc. The company leases space in one of Binghamton University's science buildings.

"Our strategic vision is to become the FedEx of the transplant market," Baust said.

The 12-person company creates solutions to help organs, cells and tissue survive longer outside the body. The immediate market is to help hospitals prolong organs between transplants. Current technology allows an organ to last a few hours to about two days before it decays past the point of viability. Baust and VanBuskirk hope to double that, to start, and someday extend those few hours to a week or more.

"The big money will be organ transplant, but the big thrust is cell therapy, - where you make designer cells to fight cancer," VanBuskirk said.

Baust uses cutting edge treatment for diabetes as an example:A new treatment would take iselet cells from a healthy donor pancreas and insert them into the liver of a diabetic patient, which would then start producing the insulin a diabetic needs.

The procedure to extract the cells is complex and only a few hospitals can do it, Baust said. But injecting them into a patient is relatively simple. BioLife's solution would allow the cells to be shipped anywhere there's a doctor with a needle and the training.

Critical Mass Needed

But BioLife isn't the only biotechnology company in the pool and with the state set to announce another round of funding - this time $200 million to help attract researchers, other companies can benefit. Jeff Kleinwaks of Advanced Medical Simulations is combining the knowledge he acquired over years of airplane simulator development with Link Flight Simulations with models of human physiology. The result is a mannequin that lets doctors learn to heal by repeatedly killing the patient until they get it right.

"It's really similar to how we've been doing other simulators as well," Kleinwaks said.

There are difficulties, to be sure. The physics of gravity, flight, motion and inertia are freshman's play compared with the physics of human anatomy and chemistry. "A 727 is a 727 is a 727," Kleinwaks said. "In people, that's not the case."

But the human body can be reduced to equations of gas transfer, hydrodynamics and a variety of other systems. And if the physiological relationships can be described by a formula, a good engineer can make a working model.

Kleinwaks has parlayed that model-making ability into a product - at first designed to mimic pre-natal and perinatal body functions - and is looking to hire a half-dozen people for his infant company.

"We expect to grow significantly over the next five years," he said. "Of course, I wouldn't be doing this if I thought it would fail."

Against The Odds

But he hesitates to project success for businesses in other segments of biotechnology. The odds are against any start-up company, given the challenges of creating a new and marketable product, then manufacturing and distributing that product. Kleinwaks is confident about medical simulators in general, but don't ask him about artificial organs or how to get the liver to produce insulin or how to preserve organs. Don't even ask him about new strains of corn that resist blight or robotic chemical sniffers that can analyze hazardous waste spills without endangering humans.

That's why Carr wants the research facility: She wants to gather enough biotech companies to draw attention, investment and success.

"The NYSEG building would be perfect," she said, and Baust and VanBuskirk agree.

"If we don't build the community support - and that includes the NYSEG building - this goes elsewhere," Baust said.

But Kleinwaks disagrees. "I work with physicians on the West Coast. Back when I was with Link, we worked with people around the world," he said. "Whether we're three or four miles apart, I think there's no problem."

However, BioLife bases some of its work on the input of graduate students using university-owned equipment. "We need to use key pieces of equipment - some of which we built ourselves - but nevertheless owned by the university."

Among that is a $150,000 protein chip microarray processor, which arrives in a couple of weeks with the help of an $82,441 grant from the state Urban Development Corp., one of only about 100 such devices operating in the nation.

Facilities Would Help

NYSEG isn't negotiating with anybody at the moment to sell the building, said Clay Ellis, NYSEG's manager of corporate communications. "The sale to any party is not under consideration, given other priorities the company is focused on," he said.

"The NYSEG building would position us to jump-start these systems very rapidly," Carr said, but any facility would need extensive renovation, which is why she wants the university to own it. Air systems would have to be carefully controlled to protect the work, and weight loads would need to be adjusted on the floors. A variety of federal codes regulate biotechnology research centers, too. "We can't just walk into an office building and take it over," she said.

And other than the NYSEG building, the options close to the Binghamton University campus are pretty limited:two car dealerships, a sewage treatment plant and a newspaper office.

"We're not talking about one building. We're talking about a series of new buildings. We're talking about our future growth," Carr said. "It doesn't help very much to do research on the top of people's heads."

But Vestal Supervisor Anndrea Starzak does worry about the lost property value. It would mean the remaining property taxpayers would have to make up the difference.

"We could lobby, but we really haven't," Starzak said, and the town has no authority of its own to stop the sale.

But she does worry about the neighborhood surrounding BU, aside from the NYSEG building and who owns it. "It's a very nice neighborhood," she said. "Whoever does anything with that property must keep up the neighborhood."

But where does that leave BioLife? The company has a dozen employees now, but will hire more as business requires. And someday Baust and VanBuskirk may bring production in-house - which means 50 or 60 new manufacturing jobs.

"We need community support and recognition in the community to share in this," Baust said. "Obviously dollars signs are great, but the community needs to buy into this."

This article posted November 10, 2000.