Stem Cell Collection

In preparation for autologous blood stem cell transplant after 2024, I had my red blood stem cells harvested. The procedure was successful and that is the bottom line. That final tally was the result of very many debits and credits. Even though we had this planned months ago, when I was wheeled from the transplant clinic to the main hospital to be taken to radiology for the placement of a catheter, the main desk asked if I was a walk-in. It took them a couple of hours to find a file folder with papers that then were entered into a computer file. That was just one event.

 

I went to the Sarah Cannon Clinic at Methodist Hospital in San Antonio about 68 miles from home because the Sarah Cannon Clinic at St. David’s Hospital in Austin about 18 miles away will not harvest and store. At Methodist they were proud to tell me that they store stem cells for the other clinic. I do not know why that treatment was denied to me in Austin but it was. “We do not harvest and store. If we harvest, we use them.” So, we scheduled treatment down the road. 

 

I met Methodist Hospital last year, after my initial diagnosis because the arithmetic of chance favors the second opinion. I have been happy to be treated here in Kyle because the office of Texas Oncology here is a short walk through a city park. It is very convenient. Even so, the second opinion has been helpful. (See “The Monty Hall Problem” on Wikipedia and elsewhere.) It validated the treatment regimens and provided additional insights. So, I have been back half a dozen times for lab tests and consultations. 

All along, I have taken as much charge of my treatment as I have bandwidth for. I bought textbooks and a microscope just for orientation because I never paid much attention to life sciences. I got a book from the UT library on oncology nursing just to read twenty pages on myeloma and Revlamid® (lenalidomide). You really have to ask the right questions to get any answer and many doctors control the flow of information according to their own standards. My primary oncologist assured me that this will not require chemotherapy and we will do it with monoclonal antibodies. He sounded like Dr. McCoy. Well, it is chemotherapy; I just don’t lose my hair (yet). And right now the FDA approves monoclonal antibodies only when two other courses have failed. So, OK, I got over that last year.

 

This time, the sugar coating was on the collection catheter, a Quinton line. I should have looked it up. “Oh, we’re just going to put a tube in your neck to collect blood...” In my neck, indeed, it went into my jugular and down to my superior vena cava. That much was fine, after all. It took two imaging systems (CT and fluoroscope) and an MD to place it. (I enjoyed listening to him cluck as he drove the twisty turny lane. I knew that he could do it.) “So,” I asked, “they can just take this out at the clinic?” Oh, yes, I was assured, after they remove it, they just hold the place shut for five minutes. Well, it was ten minutes and 30 minutes no talking lying flat to make sure that it is not bleeding out and I have dressings to wear for 72 hours and I cannot lift more than five pounds. All of which is going to impact my first day of work on a new job Monday. Who knew? 

All in all, there are worse outcomes. I am reminded of a comedian I saw on a late night show who told of a woman seated next to him on an airliner, on a telephone, telling her friend about having “the worst day of my life” while reclining in a cushioned couch at 38,000 feet, traveling 80% the speed of sound. 

 

My daughter reminded me of Adm. William H. McRaven’s parable of the sugar cookie. (See "Make Your Bed.") Other people tell it differently but for McRaven the point was that being chosen to be hosed down and rolled in the sand and spending the rest of the day covered like a sugar cookie has nothing to do with any choice you made. You could not have seen it coming and you could not have avoided it. It just happened to you. Sometimes, life is like that. So, get over it.

 

And on the assets side, every one of the nurses and assistants who were my direct caregivers were capable, informative, engaging, and supportive. I enjoyed talking to all of them. Not only do I like talking about myself but I am pretty good at interviewing and I ask a lot of questions. One of my radiologists was injured in college sports and went back for a second degree. One of the consulting oncologists was a Navy doctor. I had at least a dozen great interactions over the past three months.  

  

I have been told that there are many ways to view multiple myeloma. “This is not like breast cancer. You don’t have a lot of options here. This thing is just going to run its course.” On the other hand: “Think of it like diabetes: just something you have to manage for the rest of your life.” When I was diagnosed my initial research warned me that almost half of patients have an expected end-of-life of less than one year. It is also true that the other half, 52% or more, live ten years and more. The statistical tail on the right is getting longer. 

 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

 

Microscopy (Again) 

A New Microscope 

How Do You Make God Laugh?

Epigenetics 

Disruptive Diagnostics and the Business of Science

 

ANDROMEDA, STRAINED

I accidentally borrowed the 2008 remake of The Andromeda Strain from our city library. Long ago, after seeing the 1970 movie, I read the book. I do not know whether to attribute the failings to the depths of postmodernism or shallows of popular culture. The remake was flawed on many levels but overall the writers were incapable of updating a story that was already modern 50 years ago. Perhaps the significant advance in our knowledge is the set of organic molecules--including amino acids--found in interstellar space.

Critics Consensus - Infected with an overloaded plot
and clunky techno-babble, The Andromeda Strain is a
remarkably dull mutation of its source material.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_andromeda_strain/s01

Chains of hydrocarbons are known in the Orion "Horsehead" Nebula (Barnard 33).  Many papers have been published about the hydrocarbon molecules detected there including propynyl (C₃H₂), ethynyl (C₂H), and butadinyl (C₄H). 

1970 Movie Poster

Even more interesting is the evidence that these short hydrocarbons are the result of ultraviolet radiation breaking down more complex polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) such as naphthalene (C₁₀H₈) and anthracene (C₁₄H₁₀), which we now know to be abundant in the universe.

• "Over 130 molecules have been identified in interstellar space so far, including sugars and ethanol. But amino acids are a particularly important find because they link up to form proteins, the molecules that run, and to a large extent make up our cells." -- AMINO ACIDS FOUND IN DEEP SPACE - 18 July 2002 - here: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2558-amino-acid-found-in-deep-space/
• Amino Acid Formation on Interstellar Dust Particles -  EGS - AGU - EUG Joint Assembly, Abstracts from the meeting held in Nice, France, 6 - 11 April 2003 - Abstract here: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003EAEJA.....5100M/abstract
• AMINO ACIDS DETECTED IN SPACE - Physics World, 11 August 2003 - here: https://physicsworld.com/a/amino-acid-detected-in-space/

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BioBash: Chamber Replicates Success 

Epigenetics 

Monsters from the Id 

Teaching Science with Science Fiction 

Cell Repair and Tissue Sales

Back in the 1980s, the "cyberpunk" science fiction genre touted personal technologies in the early 21st century.  Here we are.   In the stories of William Gibson, in particular, but also Pat Cadigan, Lewis Shiner, John Shirley, and others, biotech takes the down-front stage position, even as computering of all kinds provides a rich array of characters (maybe even the chorus).  After I took the picture here - and I am sure that it meant cellular telephone repair - I saw a sign at a Walgreen that said " $$ Tissue Sale $$".  Soon… soon…

Previously on Necessary Facts

Epigenetics

Four Books about Bad Science

Observable Genius

Redshirts

Watson’s Double Helix: Doing Science and Writing About It

The Double Helix (1968) is James D. Watson’s very personal account of how he and Francis Crick worked out the structure of DNA through 1951 and 1952.  The reading is an easy 141 pages.  But depth is here, also.  The story is about scientists, their social spheres, and their conflicts, and (ultimately) their collaborations.  This is also a chronological tour through some of the mind of James D. Watson.  Proof demands evidence explained by consistent reasoning. Getting there is intuitive, insightful, and contrary.

Watson does not explain the technical terms.  Mostly, it does not matter if you do not know the formulas for adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine.  (I do not. The book has pictures.) However, neither does he do more than drop the terms “keto” and “enol.”  (You can look them up. I have not.)  The narrative moves forward nonetheless. 

More than the frustrating work of discovery, this story reveals much about how the culture of academic science perceived itself in the middle of the 20^th century.  Watson’s telling is personally unkind to Sir Lawrence Bragg.  Bragg ordered his doctoral candidate, Crick, to abandon the pursuit for DNA. Says Watson: “ … we refrained from publicly questioning Bragg’s decision. An open outcry would reveal that our professor was completely in the dark about what the initials DNA stood for. There was no reason to believe that he gave it one hundredth the importance of the structure of metals, for which he took great delight in making soap-bubble models. Nothing then gave Sir Lawrence more pleasure than showing his ingenious motion-picture film of how soap bubbles bump each other.” (page 69)  Yet, Bragg wrote the Foreword. That speaks to the culture of science.

Their conflict with Rosalind Franklin is now a legend.  In closing the history, Watson allows that her barbed shell was a necessary defense in a society that held her sex against her.  Yet, Watson also admits that she stood on good science.  She refused to accept the helix until her own x-ray crystallography validated it, even though a single snapshot from that library inspired Crick and Watson to seek the spiral structure.  When the cards were on the table, Franklin agreed, plainly, flatly, honestly.  Ironically perhaps, at that moment, the structure of DNA had nothing to do with sex.

“Much of the talk about the three-dimensional structure of proteins and nucleic acids was hot air. … It made no sense to learn complicated mathematical methods in order to follow baloney.” (page 27).

Just as Sir Lawrence Bragg denied the value in Francis Crick’s independent path, Watson was fired by the supporters of his post-doctoral work.  His position at Cambridge (where he was not supposed to be in the first place) was cancelled and he was offered nine months (not a year) in the States.  Often attributed to Buddha, the fact that a prophet is not appreciated in his homeland is correctly cited to Jesus.  To the betterment of all, the culture of science is different than that of religion.  The worst they can do to you is to withhold your stipend.  In fact, Watson’s colleagues and friends at King’s College in London, Max Perutz and John Kendrew, assured him that they could find some money if he chose to remain in England.  That help turned out not to be necessary, though Watson continued his work at Cambridge.

He fit in well, there.  The sense of fair play that defined science then was important to him.  Crick and Watson worried about invading the research spaces of others who also sought the structure of DNA.  Topmost of them was Linus Pauling, already holding a Nobel Prize, and clearly capable of more achievements at that level.  When a published paper showed that Pauling was not just wrong, but had blundered, Crick and Watson knew that they had about six weeks to finish their work because Pauling could not be bested twice. 

(Jeff Goldblum played John Watson in a television production of the story, “The Race for the Double Helix” Horizon season 23 episode 16, September 14, 1987.) 

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Epigenetics

It is not surprising that we share 98.9% of our genome with chimpanzees.  It is challenging to consider that we have about the same number of genes as mice and fish; but we have far fewer genes than plants.  It is a high school science experiment to extract DNA from strawberries. Rather than a double helix, their DNA is wrapped in a quadruple helix. Obviously, the chromosomes and genes are only part of the picture.

“Every time we see two things which are genetically identical, but which aren't the same, we're seeing epigenetics in action.” – Nessa Carey.

Epigenetics is often presented as a new frontier in biology. In fact, the word originated in the 1940s; and the first book came out a decade later. Following Crick and Watson, science was focused on the chromosomes, and then on the genes.  The Human Genome Project was declared to be successful and the equivalent of Project Apollo, both for the complexity of the task and for its promise for our future.  Enter into your Web browser the phrase “scientists find gene for” and it would seem that we are living on the Moon.

• The Epigenetics of Birds by C. H. Waddington (Cambridge University Press, 1952), reviewed by: J. T. Marshall in Bios, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Mar., 1953), p. 59.
• Epigenetics. A Treatise on Theoretical Biology by Soren Lovtrup (Wiley, 1974), reviewed by Clifford Grobstein in The Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 50, No. 4 (Dec., 1975), p. 439.

Ghost in Your Genes: PBS Nova (BBC 2006; WGBH 2007, 2008) delivers graphic evidence that genetics is not heredity.  Identical twins raised in the same home diverge, one developing autism.  Twin sisters discover that one has cancer, but the other does not.  The town of Överkalix in northern Sweden provided a paradigmatic story of the effects of environment on heredity as grandparents who had suffered starvation passed the consequences not to their children, but to their grandchildren – depending on the sex of the ancestor and the sex of the descendant. 

The same differentiation was shown in the twins Jenna and Bridget. Bridget’s autism is associated with a genetic deletion in Chromosome 15 - the ubiquitin-protein ligase E3A (UBE3A) gene (Mayo Clinic here).  It is called Angelman Syndrome. However, the same deletion is also associated with Prader-Willi Syndrome, a form of obesity.  The outcome depends on whether the X-chromosome carrying it is inherited from the mother or from the father.  The chromosomes and genes themselves are identical in both cases; the expressions are markedly different.

“The route from genes to morphological characters is convoluted and, in many aspects, still escapes us. This is the reason why we have no hypothesis or model yet of the sequential steps of the development of an organ. There is no evidence that any part of the genome (a gene or a number of genes) codes or determines steps for developing a brain, a heart, or even a strand of hair. It is true that genes or genetic networks are involved or responsible for developing such characters, but their involvement is not linear: a number of different types of cells have to be differentiated and arranged in specific spatial patterns in order to form the organ. But both cell differentiation (Christopher and Helin, 2010) and dedifferentiation (return of cells to pluripotency) (Takahashi and Yamanaka, 2006), as well as activation of gene regulatory networks (Cabej, 2010, pp. 23-24, 39-80), are epigenetically rather than genetically determined. -  Building the Most Complex Structure on Earth: An Epigenetic Narrative of Development and Evolution of Animals by Nelson R. Cabej (Elsevier, 2013, pg 67.)

As depicted in the PBS Nova production, the Överkalix study revealed an array of distinctions laid over the chromosomal inheritances.  Diabetes, early death, or longer life in the descendants depended on whether the affected ancestor was male or female. Whether the ancestor was within the womb or out also effected contrasting outcomes. Exactly when during gestation the event occurred also effected a different result.  

Wikipedia has a bit more to say. “The Överkalix study was a study conducted on the physiological effects of various environmental factors on transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. The study was conducted utilizing historical records, including harvests and food prices, in Överkalix, a small isolated municipality in northeast Sweden. The study was of 303 probands, 164 men and 139 women, born in 1890, 1905, or 1920, and their 1,818 parents and grandparents. 44 were still alive in 1995 when mortality follow-up stopped. Mortality risk ratios (RR) on children and grandchildren were determined based on available food supply, as indicated by historical data. Among the sex-specific effects noted; a greater body mass index (BMI) at 9 years in sons, but not daughters, of fathers who began smoking early. The paternal grandfather's food supply was only linked to the mortality RR of grandsons and not granddaughters. The paternal grandmother's food supply was only associated with the granddaughters' mortality risk ratio.  … The father's poor food supply and the mother's good food supply were associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular death.”

In The Epigenetics Revolution (Columbia University Press, 2012), virologist Nessa Carey tells a similar story from the Dutch Hunger Winter of 1945.  “If a mother was well-fed around the time of conception and malnourished only for the last few months of the pregnancy, her baby was likely to be born small. If, on the other hand, the mother suffered malnutrition for the first three months of the pregnancy only (because the baby was conceived towards the end of this terrible episode), but then was well-fed, she was likely to have a baby with normal body weight. … The babies who were born small stayed small all their lives, with lower obesity rates than the general population. For forty or more years, these people had access to as much food as they wanted, and yet their bodies never got over the early period of malnutrition. …  Even more unexpectedly, the children whose mothers had been malnourished only early in the pregnancy had higher obesity rates than normal.” (pp 3-4). And this tendency to overweight was inherited in the grandchildren (pg. 102).

Nessa Carey has a virology PhD from the University of Edinburgh. She worked for five years at the Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Lab in London. (Her website is here.) In this book, she carries the analogy of a Shakespeare play. The text of Romeo and Juliet is the same for everyone. Almost every cell of your body has exactly the same chromosomes. (Red blood cells and sex cells are exceptions.)  But you do not grow teeth in your eyes. The director’s comments, distributed with the script, provide more information. Methylation and histone deacetylations change the expressions of genes. Moreover, actors write notes in pencil or attach Post-its.  We smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, and ingest insecticides and herbicides. They affect us, of course, but it seems likely that they also affect our grandchildren.

These facts, should have been the clues to scientists that the chromosomes, the genes, DNA and RNA must be directed by other agents. Otherwise, as Carey says several times, you would grow teeth in your eyes.  By analogy to the exploration of space, a series of giant steps over centuries allowed us to plot the orbits of the planets correctly.  The work of Darwin, Mendel, Crick and Watson, the human genome project, all provided the shoulders of giants for today's research. Epigenetic medicine may be the equivalent of the Lunar colony.

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Bob Swanson and Genentech

Disruptive Diagnostics and the Business of Science

Bob Swanson and Genentech

Money is a culture medium for growing viable enterprises into self-sustaining engines of creation. 

Bob Swanson was 29 when he provided the money for Prof. Herbert Boyer to start Genentech.  Like all overnight successes, the real story is more complicated, with deep roots.  Bright, accomplished, and motivated, Swanson had obvious potential – and a string of failures to show for it.  In the documentary, Something Ventured (see below), Thomas J. Perkins said that his firm, Kleiner Perkins Venture Capital, brought on Bob Swanson, but “there was not much for him to do.”  Swanson said that he would look into biotechnology.  Perkins replied that if something was there, they would be interested, otherwise… And at that point, Perkins trailed off into a gesture and face.  Clues are always little things.

“So we hired Bob Swanson, whom Eugene Kleiner had known through venture capital circles. Bob had worked for Citibank in their venture capital operation and he and Eugene had been involved in a failed deal. Eugene had been impressed with Swanson's ability to think straight and get things done. So when Bob was looking for a new position, we hired him. That would have been about late 1974. We were in Embarcadero Center Two then, on the top floor.[…]  Bob worked on various deals for us. And, I have to say, not very successfully. Eugene, in particular, was increasingly unhappy with Bob. He didn't think much was going to be happening.” – Thomas Perkins [Source 5]

Robert A. Swanson was born in Brooklyn, New York, November 29 1947.  When he was still an infant, his family moved to Florida where his father worked for Eastern Airlines.  He attended MIT and completed his bachelor’s in chemistry in 1969 and followed that in 1970 with an MBA at the Sloan School of Management.  [Source 1] (Wikipedia gives 1970 as the year of both degrees.) 

Immediately after completing his MBA, he was hired by Citicorp Venture Capital.  Within three years, they were impressed enough with him that he was sent to San Francisco to open a Citicorp Venture Capital Office there.  In 1975, he joined Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers.  (Perkins recalled that as “late 1974.”) [Source 5]

Swanson had read about the research in recombinant DNA and gene splicing.  He sought out Dr. Boyer and asked for 10 minutes.  The two men spent three hours in a tavern.  Swanson’s knowledge of chemistry served him well, as he could understand the nuances in the different techniques being pursued by different researchers.  Swanson saw the market for Boyer’s work.  They launched Genentech on April 7, 1976. [Source 2]

In 1977, Genentech started with human growth hormone by contracting for production with City of Hope Hospital in Los Angeles and with the University of California at San Francisco. That allowed Genentech to move up to cloned human insulin in 1978.  They followed that with other successes: alpha interferon, gamma interferon, a hepatitis B vaccine, and thrombolytic (clot-producing) agents for hemophiliacs, and then tissue plasminogen activator (TPA) to dissolve blood clots associated with heart attacks.

America’s bilateral East Coast / West Coast dichotomies are easy to cite, especially in technology.  (In Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, Steven Levy pointed out that the Spacewars video game came from MIT, whereas Stanford gave us Adventure, based on Lord of the Rings.)  But Robert Swanson understood the importance of social capital, built with strong employee bonds.   His scientists could publish their work, something most big drug companies were reluctant to allow.  Also typical of the West Coast, Genentech held Friday parties known as ho-hos.  As Genentech researchers remembered it: 

“The Ho-Ho tradition began simply with refreshments for employees every Friday afternoon. At the end of one particularly hectic work week, a manufacturing VP said, "Oh, another Friday afternoon, ho, ho, ho, ho." And the name stuck. …
The Ho-Ho was an occasion for play and absurdity. One time Swanson and Boyer came dressed up as Tweedledee and Tweedledum… But from the start, Ho-Hos were more than just fun. To Swanson, the Ho-Ho was “a wonderful idea, because you need a place where people at all levels of the organization, from the president on down, can get together in their shirtsleeves and talk about the issues, as equals... One of the things you worry about, as you get higher in an organization, is whether people are comfortable telling you the truth about the way they see the needs of the company - where are we screwing up as a company?” 

The firm posted a profit in 1979 and went public in 1980. That public offering came at some human cost for the venture capitalists.  Perkins and Swanson disagreed on the timing, with Swanson being opposed to going public.  Eventually, Swanson saw Perkins’s point, but their strained relationship was worse off for it.  Still, Bob Swanson worked as CEO of Genentech through its steepest growth curve through 1990.  Tom Perkins was chairman of the board.  Then, from 1990-96 Swanson served as chairman.  In 1990, Genentech and Roche Holding Ltd. completed a $2.1 billion merger. Initially Hoffman-LaRoche bought a majority interest in Genentech. Then in 2009, LaRoche bought the rest of the stock, but turned around and sold off blocks of it in to the public.

After leaving Genentech Bob Swanson formed a private investment management firm (K & E Management), and served as chairman of Tularik, Inc., a firm researching gene expressions that can be harnessed to produced therapeutics. He also volunteered his time to civic organizations and to his daughters’ soccer teams.

In the book, 1,000 Years, 1,000 People: Ranking the Men and Women Who Shaped the Millennium, (New York :, Kodansha International, 1998) the authors ranked Bob Swanson number 612 for launching the biotechnology revolution.

After a year of battling brain cancer via surgery and chemotherapy Bob Swanson passed away on Monday, December 6, 1999, at his home in Hillsborough, California. (The Guardian gave it as November 30.)  He was 52.

Sources:

1. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1999/swanson-1208.html (Obituary)

2. http://www.gene.com/about-us/leadership/our-founders (Tribute)

3. http://www.nytimes.com/1999/12/07/business/robert-a-swanson-52-co-founder-of-genentech.html (Obituary)

4. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/1999/dec/10/obituaries.genetics (Biography)

5. http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt1p3010dc (Program in the History of the Biological Sciences and Biotechnology: Kleiner Perkins, Venture Capital, and the Chairmanship of Genentech, 1976-1995; interviews conducted by Glenn E. Bugos, Ph.D.)

6. "The Origins of Biotechnology: A Genentech Perspective"

http://blog.zymergi.com/2013/01/origins-biotech-genentech.html

(Personal recollections and images of artifacts including company newsletters.)

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Disruptive Diagnostics and the Business of Science

Former UT professor Tom Kodadek returned to address the postdoctoral student association of the School of Biological Sciences on April 25. He met a full house of about 250. The title of his talk was “The Ups and Downs of Moving ‘Disruptive’ Diagnostic and Therapeutic Technology from the Lab to the Real World.”  Dr. Kodadek is now with the Scripps Research Institute, in Jupiter, Florida.  Originally funded by the NIH, his work is now marketed by OPKO Health, Inc., which found the angel funding he needed to bring his theories to realization.

He first identified the standard approach to any drug therapy:

1. Perform basic research on the disease mechanism,.

2. Identify molecules in the blood that are unique to that disease, or whose levels change drastically.

3. Develop a specific method to measure the level of that molecule in the blood.

4. Commercialize.

This fits our standard model for diagnosis.  The patient feels bad and goes to a doctor for treatment.  Tests are run.  A cause is hypothesized and treatments begin while the patient’s course is monitored.  The shortcomings with the standard approach begin with the fact that we have to wait until we feel bad to get a diagnosis.  Also, tests are heterogeneous: any symptom suggests many tests.

Dr. Thomas Kodadek (left) at the Reception.

 Kodadek then offered a better approach.  His theory is that antigens must exist before symptoms reach perceptible levels: you are sick before you have a fever. With pre-symptomatic screening we could monitor for any active disease in its early stage, before the symptoms appear.  His recommended course is to routinely monitor the levels of dozens of disease-specific antibodies as part of any periodic medical check-up.  

To achieve that, we need to develop a large, broad, and deep array of synthetic artificial molecules that act as antigen surrogates. This is possible through combinatorial chemistry.

He then rapidly outlined the some of the details of his methodology for the audience of post-doctoral biologists at the School of Biological Sciences before re-aligning his presentation to the business community. 

Having left the University of Texas, he thought that he was about to go to San Francisco to present his ideas to venture capitalists.  However, he first was invited to speak to a group at  the Scripps Research Institute.  Feeling somewhat challenged to be sharing the stage with six Nobel laureates, he thought that he handled it well.  After the talks, the president of Scripps, Dr. Richard Lerner, came up to him and graphically explained that he was about to get screwed. Dr. Lerner introduced him to Phil Frost of OPKO Health, Inc.

Opko had just suffered a failed third-stage test of a major product initiative.  Phil Frost had a company in need of new work.  Opko also acquired Cytochroma, Inc., a company with “a suite of products for treatment of secondary hyperparathyroidism and hyperphosphatemia in chronic kidney disease patients.”  Another Cytochroma product screens for vitamin D deficiency.  In fact, said Kodadek, we may find that we are in the midst of an epidemic and not know it because we only now are coming to understand the many functions of that essential nutrient.  

Opko is also pursuing a screen for neuromyelitis optica (NMO). NMO is marked by the presence of AQP4 (aquaporin 4) and anti-AQP4 antibodies. With Bindu L. Raveendra, Hao Wu, and others, Kodadek published “Discovery of Peptoid Ligands for Anti-Aquaporin 4 Antibodies,”in Chemistry and Biology, (vol 20:3; 21 March 2013, pp 351-359).  In the same issue, working with Yu Gao, Kodadek published “Synthesis and Screening of Stereochemically Diverse Combinatorial Libraries of Peptide Tertiary Amides,” (Pages 360-369). 

Tom Kodadek with his friends at the Reception

Dr. Thomas Kodadek closed by  summarizing his experiences. “Work on important projects, not widgets. Incubate for as long as possible in the university before taking your work to the market.  Angel investors are better than venture capitalists.  Focus early on the people you bring in to start the organization.”

Following the talk the School of Biological Sciences hosted a reception.  About 50 people attended.  I met old friends Maggie Bishop of the Austin Chamber of Commerce, Benjamin Grosse-Siestrup of Antimicrobial Test Laboratories and Ken Russell of Metabolic Therapy, as well as new acquaintances Dr. Gregory Daniel Frank of XBiotech, and Dr. Priya Sridharan of the UT department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, and neurobiologist Dr. Sangeetha Iyer. (Dr. Iyer and I actually crossed paths in 2012 during South by Southwest. I was flattered that she remembered me.)

  

Previously on Necessary Facts

BioBash: Chamber Replicates Success

Austin Winter 2012 BioBash
BioPunks: DIY Scientists Hack the Code of Life
Bob Swanson and Genentech
Epigenetics
Mayim Bialik

Biobash: Chamber Replicates Success

Kyle Cox of Health 2.0 and Austin Health Technology was the featured speaker as about 50 Austin life science professionals gathered at The Front Page in the penthouse of the Chase Tower, on February 27, sponsored by the Austin Chamber of Commerce. 

Kyle outlined the path to success for biotech in Austin. 

Maggie Bishop welcomes guests
and introduces Kyle Cox

“Be the best you you can be,” he said.  In other words, do not attempt to copy Silicon Valley, but capitalize on Austin’s own unique blend of strengths.  “Stress the roots,” he said, making an analogy to vinology.  Do not give out too many government subsidies; make firms earn their success.

• To build an ecosystem requires a state of permanent revolution.
• Favor the high potentials. Put resources into products that will pay back the most.
• Get a big win on the board.  “Get some pelts on the wall,” he said.
• Do not over-engineer the clusters but rather let them find their own paths to success. 
• Reform the regulation.  Nora Belcher underscored this, saying that the growth of leading-edge biotech in Texas struggles against well-meaning legislation from 1978.  She also pointed out that Texas state regulations on privacy are stricter than HIPAA. 

Cox praised the meetups and online communities for life sciences here in Austin, touting the Austin Health Tech group on Meetup.com.  (Also on Meetup we have Austin Life Science Professionals, run by Benjamin Grosse-Siestrup.  They get together at the Renaissance Hotel in Arboretum.  Benjamin and I met at the previous Biobash, after I restarted the Austin Biotech group on LinkedIn.  Also on LinkedIn is a new Austin group for Drug Delivery technology, a spin-off of UT’s life science incubator.) 

Kyle Cox

Kyle Cox then called for a speaker series, hackathons, national events, and a local presence at trade shows.  The American Telemedicine Association is holding its annual convention in Austin, May 5-7.   On the subject of hackathons, Cox said that Humana is willing to give a copy of some of its databases to creative programmers who can show them new ways to understand their information; and a code-athon will be held at SXSW Interactive on March 8.  He identified three venture capital firms – Dream IT, Live Oak, and Corsa Ventures – with $100 million to invest.

The Office of the National Health Coordinator of Health and Human Services gave the University of Texas $2.77 million for their Health IT program which grants certificates and diplomas to people who learn how to use computers to track patients.  This was part of the federal economic stimulus package.

Before and after the presentation, Austin life science professionals enjoyed hors d’oeuvres - courtesy of the Chamber of Commerce - and the opportunity to sit and talk with each other about their interests.  Maggie Bishop of the Chamber made sure that I met Dr. Tim Meehan of Saber Astronautics.  (Tim and I actually met at Benjamin’s Meetup last month.)  I also met Samantha Fechtel, executive administrator of the Texas Medical Accelerator, Joe Smith director of technology innovation for Globiox, Jim and Sabine Accuntius whose Research Equipment Alliance is selling femto-second lasers for histology and similar research. (Calling them microtomes is three orders of magnitude too large.) Sharon Manley just joined Growth Acceleration Partners/Mobius as their new business development specialist.  Although we talk a lot about “cloud computing” most of our work is done on the ground, and so, Christopher L. Marchbanks from Cresa Austin (“The Tenants Advantage”) was also at the Biobash.

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS
Biopunk: DIY Scientists Hack the Software of Life
Disruptive Diagnostics and the Business of Science
Austin Biobash November 2012
Bob Swanson and Genentech
Mayim Bialik
The Origin of ... What?

BioBash Austin Winter 2012

Dr. Matt Winkler

Dr. Paul Lammers

The Austin Chamber’s BioAustin Winter BioBash was held on November 28 at the Driskill Hotel.  About 150 of us celebrated the history of life sciences here in Central Texas with a keynote address from Dr. Matt Winkler, the chairman and CEO of Asuragen.  He was followed by Dr. Paul Lammers chairman and CEO at Mirna Therapeutics.  Mirna (from “micro RNA”), founded by Winkler, is a third-generation daughter of Ambion which Winkler created in 1989 while at the University of Texas and sold in 2005 to the Applied Biosystems Group of Applera and is now a Life Technologies^™ label.

I first met Kyle Schulz of the Round Rock Chamber. He was there on behalf of Austin Community College, seeking to place their biotechnology students in internships with companies.  He found Maggie Bishop for me.  Maggie is with the Austin Chamber and is active on the Austin Biotech group on LinkedIn. She was the emcee for the event. (She is also on the committee to coordinate the creation of the new medical center here.)

UT researcher Scott Rynbrandt with Dr. Simona Perra.
Perra's expertise is the legal regulation of medical devices.

Standing together at a table, were Gail Darling of Gail Darling Staffing who brought her experience in federal contracting, and Nancy Goedeke whose MedMarComm provides marketing and communication services, Jason Choyce of DPR Construction, which specializes in complex projects for advanced technologies, and Kevin Fincher, a tax partner with Padgett Strateman.

Later, Gail introduced me to Stephen Frayser, the new executive director of Texas State University’s STAR Park. The 38-acre Science Technology and Advanced Research Park opened officially on November 9 to provide secure wet labs, clean rooms, and office space.

Not everyone we met had business cards.  (I ran out quickly.  After the Technical Writer cards, I was down to the Criminologist introductions.  I even gave out my Capital City Coin Club Vice President cards.)  And we met a lot of graduate and post graduate students working in university and private labs. 

Our last contacts were a trio from the Austin Technology Incubutor: Mike A. Sandoval of the IC2 Institute, Dr. Lydia V. McClure, an Accenture Venture Partner with Texas Venture Labs at the McCombs School of Business, and Michael R. Pierce also an Accenture Venture Partner.  Earlier this year, the ATI announced the launch of two companies, Savara Pharmaceuticals, and Terapio, which markets the RPLI76 protein as a countermeasure to radiation exposure and chemical threats.  About 30 companies are now in the incubator, including Alafair Bioscience, Integrated Medical Systems, Inc., Admittance Technologies, and Xeris which makes ultra-low volume biopharmaceuticals in auto-injection pens.

Asuragen here

Mirna Therapeutics here

Ambion here

Austin Technology Incubutor here

The IC2 Institute at the University of Texas

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS

Biopunk: DIY Scientists Hack the Software of Life
Epigenetics
Disruptive Diagnostics and the Business of Science
Austin Biobash February 2013
Bob Swanson and Genentech

Mayim Bialik