ETSU’s Innovation Lab welcomes ProteoGenesis
East Tennessee State University’s Innovation Laboratory recently celebrated its third anniversary by welcoming a new tenant, ProteoGenesis.
A full-service incubator, the ETSU Innovation Lab is designed to support entrepreneurs and investors in the successful establishment of technology-based start-up and spin-off businesses that will achieve technology transfer, create jobs, and enhance economic development within the region.
The business concept of ProteoGenesis originated over a year ago as the creation of Dr. Douglas Corrigan and Brent Lockhart, both alumni of ETSU.
ProteoGenesis will synthesize and purify proteins, making small research quantities of the engineered proteins to be used by researchers in biotech areas and in pharmaceutical firms. Scientists use the proteins to search for new ways to combat dreaded diseases such as AIDS, SARS, bird flu, and cancer, while others use the proteins as a tool in their research.
Researchers have traditionally isolated needed proteins on their own, but the process is time-consuming and difficult. Instead, they may be able to obtain the proteins needed for their research from ProteoGenesis, whose distributors can ship any component of their product line within 24 hours.
Using technology that has arisen over the past two decades, ProteoGenesis employees will copy a gene from the DNA of a living organism and then artificially replicate the desired protein through a suite of biotechnological techniques that can require up to six months to complete.
DNA is introduced into an “expression host,” which may be a non-pathogenic form of E-coli, yeast cells, or insect cells. The host cell reads the DNA “map” which tells the cell how to produce large amounts of the chosen type of protein.
Tens of thousands of protein types are in the complex biological mixture at first, and the difficult part of the process involves purifying and isolating one specific protein. Many methods are used to achieve the desired 95 percent pure end product.
During the first year, ProteoGenesis will be housed in a lab on ETSU’s campus–until a new 11,000-square-foot additional Innovation Lab building is completed in late 2006. Beginning with perhaps 15 of the millions of known proteins, ProteoGenesis hopes to produce 200 or so after five years, with the assistance of four initial employees, increasing gradually to 25 or 30.
Marketing for ProteoGenesis products will be handled by Sigma-Aldrich, a $1.5 billion a year corporation with some 5,000 employees serving more than 150,000 active customers worldwide. The staff includes customer service representatives who can speak any language and a technical service staff able to ship orders anywhere around the globe within 24 hours.
Corrigan, a New Jersey native, earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. While earning his master’s degree in engineering physics, he worked several months at a time at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and on several microgravity missions flown aboard the space shuttle with NASA. During his time in Oak Ridge, he met and married Amy, a native of Northeast Tennessee, and changed the course of his life. The couple moved to Elizabethton, and he entered ETSU to earn a doctorate in biochemistry.
As a student at ETSU, Corrigan spent many hours in labs, isolating proteins. He and a fellow student, Brent Lockhart, realized that this time-consuming, difficult chore devoured a disproportionate amount of effort and energy. Research could be accomplished much more effectively, they reasoned, if the necessary proteins were available for purchase.
Lockhart, a native of Havre, Montana, grew up in Tazewell, Va. Already a two-time ETSU alumnus, with bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the university, and after working in the pharmaceutical industry, he, like Corrigan, was studying for a Ph.D. in biochemistry. With encouragement from his wife, Annette, and three-year-old son, Joshua, Lockhart will join Corrigan in their commercial venture after completing the requirements for his doctoral degree within the next year.
The two students approached Dr. Mike Woodruff, ETSU’s Vice Provost for Research and Sponsored Programs, who saw that while their idea had great merit and these men had strong scientific backgrounds, they had no business experience. He steered them to Dr. Andy Czuchry’s class in entrepreneurship. Czuchry, holder of the AFG Industries Chair of Excellence in Business and Technology, uses the course to assist students who have an idea for a commercial enterprise, but need to learn to create a viable business plan. During the class, Corrigan and Lockhart met Louie Gump, a well-known local entrepreneur, who assisted in locating “angels” willing to invest the capital necessary to start the business.
Now, pending additional funding, ProteoGenesis will be moving into available space at the Innovation Lab, where the director, Dave Lawrence, has smoothed the way toward the creation of the business by offering office space, the amenities shared by the occupants, including a receptionist, high-speed Internet access, and a telephone system with voice mail, plus his own expertise gained through more than 30 years of experience in business development.
Corrigan is a strong advocate for Northeast Tennessee. He enjoys the region’s quality of life and finds it a good place to raise the couple’s daughter, Kyra, age 5, and son, Isaac, age 2. While he was in graduate school, he noticed that his classmates struggled to find high-tech positions within the region, and he saw many who wished to remain near their home but were drawn away to the East Coast or West Coast to find employment. He hopes this fledgling business will serve as a model for others and help create an increased local demand for highly skilled employees.
For further information, visit the ProteoGenesis web site at www.proteogenesis.net, or contact Corrigan at 1-800-609-3185 or via e-mail at douglascorrigan@proteogenesis.net. |
