Vol. 17, No. 21, November 22, 2004

IN THIS ISSUE:

This Reveille Home Page | The Friday Program: The Emerging Age of Biology | Thanksgiving Baskets | A New Fellowship Opportunity | Giving Tree | Program Alert | Friday Potpourri | Students of the Month: Michelle Magnotti & Jonathan Wilson | The Payoff ­ Raffle Awards | Paranoia Strikes SAA; SAA Strikes Back | Point of Inspiration | Web Fun

The Friday Program:
The Emerging Age of Biology

The BBRC went back to class Friday, biology class that is. With Professor Tom Ranken, fellow Rotarian from University Sunrise doing the honors, the club learned about VizX Labs’ projects that are making an impact in the world of science.

Tom, being the wary Rotarian he is, opened his message when he told his audience that he had to negotiate his fee for this presentation with Program Chair Jim Gordon. “After I found out what the fee would be, I sent in my check!” Another fundraising idea!

Tom is CEO of VizX Labs headquartered in Seattle. He’s an alumnus of Immunex and has been in the Biotech field for 15 years. “It’s incredible, intriguing stuff, as we seek to find the Holy Grail of Biology.”

Back to class we went. Ranken showed a slide that said “Genes express proteins.” Further explained, “express means ‘makes’ ­ genes make proteins. Every cell has a genome, a recipe, sort of an instruction booklet. What we are learning is leading to incredible changes in the knowledge revolution.”

Now, it gets more difficult. DNA properties consist of a double-stranded twisted chain with four elements and over 3 billion base pairs. The parts of this include genes, of which there are 20,000 to 25,000 different identified genes. Then, Tom said something really significant: “Humans are over 99% IDENTICAL.

One would surmise that the remaining 1% contains all of the differences that may exist among humans. “Our problem is this ­ we don’t understand all of this very well (Tell us about it, Tom!). There are complex interactions between multiple genes which we don’t understand. It has taken us 50 years to get this far, but finally, I can say, our knowledge base will accelerate rapidly over the next couple of decades.”

The Human Genome Project has just started and it’s very complicated. “The cake is the DNA, a recipe which holds all this information. The question we ask ourselves is: ‘How can you ruin a cake? Either the recipe is wrong (cystic fibrosis, Huntington’s disease, breast cancer) or the process or the instructions or the environment all has significant impact on the cake.”

“Proteins are the Holy Grail. Our path to medicine in the past was through disease and chemistry expertise. Now, we can add genomics, which generates bioinformatics. All this new information gives us biological understanding, which leads to the development of new drugs to cure disease. And, the important lesson is that if we can move diagnosis technology to an early stage, or Stage One, we can expect a 90% cure rate.”

Then, there’s something called "Microarrays" ­ hundreds of thousands of spots with each spot representing a single gene. Microarrays can ask questions which will produce answers as to how to solve these medical problems.

This is VizX Labs’ market. The Research Laboratory Market is the niche where VizX Labs has positioned itself, and it’s growing rapidly. The company has developed a software system known as "GeneSifter." Earlier this year, VWR International, IBM and VizX Labs teamed up to offer this novel life science system. VWR is the world’s largest distributor of life science supplies.

GeneSifter is the integration of biology, software and the Web. The early stage subscription model is Internet based where scientific data is maintained on VizX Labs’ servers. What this new system allows scientists to do is do comparatives with their colleagues. It allows them to collaborate with their colleagues throughout the world on this web-based system. As Ranken said, “This is Genome analysis software that speeds up the learning process. A scientist can now do projects in hours instead of months. It’s knowledge distribution, an Internet based transfer of data and information.”

Whatever the implications of all of this new knowledge, one thing is certain. The speed at which we learn has been accelerated. At the same time, Ranken’s remarks reveal how little we really know. We are people thirsting for knowledge. It sounds like VizX Labs have found a fountain of information which will assist scientists to quench their thirst for knowledge now, instead of later.

You can learn more by visiting www.vizxlabs.com.

Thanks to Jim Gordon for his introduction. CEO Tom Ranken received a certificate showing that 1220 pounds of food from Rotary First Harvest has been donated in his name to food banks in the area.

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