Issue 2  Volume 1 March 31, 2005

 

Today Prostates,

Tomorrow the World

 

Bostwick Laboratories performs more prostate biopsies than any other lab -- anywhere. Such disciplined focus could well revolutionize the $35 billion-a-year medical lab business.

 

 

by James A. Bacon

 

Dr. David Bostwick tells a story about a 55-year-old pathology colleague whose blood analysis showed a slowly rising serum PSA count, a possible indicator of prostate cancer. The man had a biopsy taken, and sent it to the lab. He couldn’t sleep that night, or the next, for worry that he had cancer. As if the waiting weren't agonizing enough, the tests came back inconclusive. Most of the slides looked benign, but one showed a small “focus”, the size of a pin, that looked ambiguous. In desperation, he sent the slide to Bostwick, one of the leading prostate cancer pathologists in the world.

 

Bostwick determined that the biopsy was benign. His colleague, who’d gone without sleep by then for three days, was immeasurably relieved. “It was the uncertainty,” Bostwick says. “Knowing you’ve got cancer, and being able to deal with it, is easier in some ways than not knowing.”

One of the failings of the contemporary health care system is the extended turn-around time in lab results that can take anywhere from two days and two weeks. “The uncertainty is torture,” Bostwick says. And there’s no good reason for it.

 

That was Bostwick's primary motivation for founding Bostwick Laboratories, which has expanded over four years into the world’s fastest-growing, most efficient – and, quite possibly, most accurate – prostate biopsy laboratory in the world. “It’s quite remarkable, really,” says Bostwick. “We see more prostate biopsies than anyone else in the world – right here in this building in Richmond, Virginia.” More.

Richmond: A Center for Health Care Innovation

Bostwick Laboratories may be reinventing the medical laboratory business, but it’s hardly the only Richmond company that’s transforming the health care industry. More.

Medical School to Revive Focus

VCU officials aim to return research and development to the forefront of efforts.

by Tammie Smith

Richmond Times-Dispatch Staff Writer

Virginia Commonwealth University officials plan to hire more than 80 new research faculty over the next six years and invest millions in a new laboratory building and other space.

Research in cancer, neuroscience, infectious diseases, immunology and microbiology, transplant medicine, and cardiology is expected to benefit from the move.

It is part of an effort to return the medical school to its research heyday when it ranked among the top tier in the nation for winning National Institutes of Health research dollars -- surpassing even the University of Virginia, which now easily outranks it.

"I think we were fairly successful in creating a tradition of scientific inquiry in the early years," said Dr. Sheldon M. Retchin, VCU vice president for health sciences. (Richmond Times-Dispatch, March 8, 2005) More. 

Breathing Life into Chemical Engineering

Michael Peters is transforming VCU’s chemical engineering department into an extension of the life sciences.

Chemical companies in the United States are reinventing themselves, and the schools that educate the next generation of chemical engineers need to change with them. That’s the appraisal of Michael Peters, the new chemical engineering chair at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Engineering.

In a globally competitive economy, observes Peters, the production of commodity chemicals used in bulk manufacturing is moving overseas, where costs are lower. Major U.S. chemical corporations are investing in life science enterprises that offer greater growth prospects, and, increasingly, they’re hiring engineers with multi-disciplinary backgrounds extending to biology and medicine.

“All these major chemical companies have devel- oped life science divis- ions,” Peters says. “3M has one. Monsanto has one. Procter & Gamble, too. Life science engineering is the fastest-growing of

Michael Peters

In the lab, Dr. Anthony Guiseppi-Elie, a Trinidad-born scientist with credentials heavy enough to sink the battleship Bismarck, is, with his multidisciplinary research team, developing a biochip to be implanted in the muscle of injured battlefield fighters.

As the fallen combatants are being evacuated to a MASH tent or field hospital, biosensors in the chip will transmit ahead to medics a readout indicating how they're responding to their wounds and the severity of their injury.

Tony Guiseppi-Elie, courtesy of

the Richmond Times-Dispatch

The chip may even suggest a medical treatment.

But that's not all. Guiseppi-Elie, 50, is working on other projects, too, among them an electronic "nose," a medical device with sensors that collect information about nearby vapors. It will be able to "smell" the exhaled breath of a trauma patient on the battlefield or in civilian life and tell medics their state of health. (Richmond Times-Dispatch, Nov. 2, 2004.) More.

News

Business

Insmed Drug Submitted to FDA. Insmed Incorporated has submitted a New Drug Application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for regulatory approval of SomatoKine for the treatment of growth hormone insensitivity syndrome. Said CEO Geoffrey Allan: "The submission … represents a great achievement for the company. … We believe that SomatoKine is a breakthrough therapeutic agent. (March 15, 2005) More.

CBI Wins Two New Contracts. Commonwealth Biotechnologies Inc., a research lab active in bioterror research, has won a $1.8 million contract to produce proteins and antibodies related to vaccines against certain select agent pathogens. (March 10, 2005) More.

Forensics Institute Expands at Park. The Virginia Institute of Forensic Science and Medicine recently expanded its presence at the Virginia Biotechnology Research Park, and now occupies additional offices in BioTech One to perform contract research work for the U.S. Department of Justice. (Dec. 25, 2004) More.

Hemodyne, recently awarded a $70,000 federal grant to develop an alternative to the tourniquet for non-compressible hemorrhages, has partnered with fellow tenants at the Virginia Biotechnology Research park, to produce a wide range of lightweight, durable medical devices appropriate for military personnel to use in austere, remote conditions. (Jan. 3, 2005) More.

VCU Profs to Edit Women’s Health Journal. Susan G. Kornstein, professor of psychiatry has been named editor-in-chief of the Journal of Women’s Health, a peer-reviewed journal. Wendy S. Klein, professor of internal medicine, will serve as deputy editor. (Jan. 31, 2005) More.

E. Morgan Massey, a major contributor to the VCU Massey Cancer Center has been awarded the 2005 Lifetime Achievement in Industry award by the Science Museum of Virginia. (Feb. 14, 2005) More.

VCU Ranked 7th for Life Science Post Docs. Virginia Commonwealth University has been ranked the 7th top 10 U.S. academic institution for post doctorate degrees in the Life Sciences, by The Scientist, a science news journal. (Feb. 14, 2005) More.

The National Institutes of Health has awarded the VCU School of Nursing a $3 million grant to research whether stress-management techniques can improve immune system responses in women with breast cancer. (Dec. 2, 2004) More.

The National Institute of Drug Abuse has awarded a $3.2 million contract to VCU’s Institute for Drug and Alcohol Studies to test therapeutic drugs that could help cocaine abusers deal with their addiction. (Feb. 1, 2005) More.

VCU scientists have made a key advance in understanding the proteins and mechanisms involved in the spread of Lyme Disease. (Dec. 7, 2004) More.

Researchers Build “Superatoms”. A VCU research team has discovered clusters of aluminum atoms that have chemical properties similar to single atoms of metallic and nonmetallic elements when they react with iodine, opening the door to using “superatom” chemistry to create unique compounds with novel properties. (Jan. 15, 2005) More.

VCU Delves into Women's Depression. VCU mental health experts have found that women with depression commonly report fluctuations in their symptoms across the menstrual cycle — a key factor that may help physicians better evaluate and treat depressed women. (Feb. 1, 2005) More.

VCU Probes Gene-Alcoholism Connection
VCU researchers have identified genetic changes in the brains of mice caused by ethanol, which may help researchers better understand how and why people become addicted to alcohol. (March 2, 2005) More.

Virginia Commonwealth University is ranked among the top American research universities, according to the Lombardi Program on Measuring University Performance. Feb. 18, 2005) More.