By Tom Henderson
Small Times Senior Writer
ANN ARBOR, Mich., Oct. 8, 2001 — A startup company spun off from the University of Michigan (U-M) has created an emulsion it says will help protect civilians and troops from biological terror attacks.
Ted Annis, chief executive of NanoBio Corp., says its patented antimicrobial substance, a white creamy
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| Tests by the U.S. Defense Department have shown that NanBio’s emulsion acts as a decontamination agent. The antimicrobial nanoemulsions employ uniformly sized droplets in the 200-400 nanometer range. |
“Because of the events of Terrible Tuesday, we expect the Department of Defense will come to us with emergency funding to get this to market,” said Annis. “We have been contacted by the Department of Defense and asked to deliver an estimate of the cost and the timing to accelerate the technology.”
He declined to say which branch of the Defense Department had approached him.
NanoProtect is the result of a five-year, $11.8 million grant by the U.S. Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA) to University of Michigan researcher Dr. James Baker Jr., director of the school’s Center for Biologic Nanotechnology.
“The nanoemulsion developed by Dr. Baker has had good initial results,” said a DARPA spokesman, adding that it is undergoing further evaluation by the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research at Fort Sam Houston in Texas.
Tests by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, under the Department of Defense, have shown that the emulsion acts as a decontamination agent.
NanoBio’s second product, a vaccine that can be sprayed in the nose to provide immunity for chemical and biological agents, is still undergoing university research and is at least two years from the marketplace, said Annis.
Annis said that so far he has been unable to find a competitor for NanoBio’s biological decontaminants.
Nanoscale Materials Inc., of Manhattan, Kan., says it will have two nanocrystal products — a skin cream and a spray applied from a fire extinguisher-type canister — on the market in the first quarter of next year that will give protection against chemical agents.
NanoProtect is a water and oil emulsion, with droplets in the 200- to 400-nanometer range. According to Annis, the size of the droplets’ molecules allows them to bond to and destroy surface membranes of a wide range of agents, including anthrax spores, and the smallpox and Ebola viruses.
“On a small scale, it sort of blows up the microbe,” said Annis.
The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington has changed the company’s market focus from civilian to military applications. Because of DARPA’s role, Annis said, he first approached potential military funding sources a year ago. Funding is needed for further toxicity tests to win approval for use by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“But there was no particular timeline we could determine, with the exception of the Army, which planned on rolling out a de-con product in 2006. I knew then that the government was not a marketplace,” he said.
But since Sept. 11, that has all changed.
Annis said he expects government funding will accelerate the time to market from at least 18 months to less than a year.
In September, the U.S. General Accounting Office said that the federal government will spend $156.8 million this fiscal year on technology to fight biological agents. That is up more than 11 percent from the $141.2 million spent last year.
NanoBio’s patent covers applications for antiviral, antisporicidal, antifungal and antibacterial applications. Annis said there are about 300 different product formulations, most of which still have to undergo toxicity studies.
The generally agreed upon qualification of a nanomaterial is 100 nanometers in diameter or smaller. While NanoProtect doesn’t quite qualify, Annis said other products will have eventually have droplets as small as five nanometers.
Annis said the company will license its technology to pharmaceutical companies and makers of a wide variety of consumer products. “We’re a technology company. We have no plans to manufacture,” he said.
The company claims its formulations can be used in acne products, mouthwash and toothpaste, as a spermicide, for treatment of herpes 1 and 2, on nonporous kitchen surfaces, in detergents, to purify water, in food processing and in medical labs.
“It’s a platform technology. There are so many applications, it will keep us busy for a while,” said Annis.
According to research by Baker’s team at U-M, the emulsions have a shelf life of two years and virtually no toxicity.
NanoBio has received a $900,000 grant to investigate applications for food safety by the Michigan Life Sciences Corridor, a $1 billion consortium of research organizations, including U-M. It was organized the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.
Related Story: Little dots on the prairie: Kansas company cultivates nanocrystals
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CONTACT THE AUTHOR:
Tom Henderson at [email protected] or call 734-528-6292.