Buggy For Bioscience

LITTLE SHOP OF FLORA: Research Assistant Dong Ping Lu and Chairman Harry Ako show off their plant specimens at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. photo: Cory Lum

They're best known for their Ala Wai Canal plant project (technically, phytoremediation) –you know, the one that tests the ability of floating plants to kill pollutants in brackish-water environments–but the gang at the University of Hawaii Molecular Biosciences and Bioengineering Department is researching a whole lot more than plants and pollutants. For the five years since its inception, the department has been pushing out all sorts of world-class research and development technologies from its low-key laboratories on the UH Manoa campus.

Just last year, the department patented a DNA-based biosensor designed to detect invasive species. It also patented, in partnership with local biotech firm Bioxene, an antibody-based biosensor to detect a variety of diseases, including the deadly, fast-spreading bird-flu virus. Department Chairman Harry Ako says the current process for detecting the virus is costly and time-consuming compared with his department's detection device: "Right now, they have to grow the virus in tissue culture, which takes a week. With ours, the biosensors change colors as soon as it detects the bird-flu antigen."

Ako says that, while the commercial revenue potential for the department is obviously phenomenal, his foremost concern is building and supporting the development of Hawaii's biotech industry, so that, when the time comes, his 146 undergrad, graduate and postdoctoral students can remain in the Islands. "We have fuzzy academic goals, one of which is that we will, for our students, capture a significant market share of the biotechnology and bioengineering jobs in Hawaii," he says. "And we can do that by proving that our department is capable of developing advanced technologies."

For the most part, that doesn't seem to be a problem. In addition to the invasive species and bird-flu detectors, the group has also built a series of coqui-frog disinfestation units around the Islands, which kill frogs hiding in nursery plants prior to export, and is also researching the use of kukui oil for sunburn prevention, particularly in patients undergoing radiation therapy. The real question, however, is when the department will figure out how to start bringing in the big bucks. While it has increased R&D funding from $0.5 million to $4 million in four years, it hasn't quite gotten the hang of commercialization yet.

Ako says, the department, "gave away" both the coqui-frog disinfestations units and the technology behind the open-ocean fish cages now owned by the multimillion-dollar firm Cates International. "Yeah, okay, so we could've sold that for a lot of money. But we gave it to them. Hey, they don't call us absentminded professors for nothing," jokes Ako. "No, we're learning. But some things we have to do just to help out."

>> BIOENGINEERING BITS

• Established in August 2001, The National Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering is the newest of the research institutes at the National Institutes of Health. • In 2003, the average starting offer for bioengineering candidates with master's degrees was $61,000. • The lowest 10 percent of bioengineers earn around $48,500 annually, while those in the top 10 percent earn more than $107,500 per year. • Among all the engineering specialties, bioengineering has the highest percentage of female students. • At last count, in 2001, out of the roughly 43,000 doctorate holders with science, engineering or health postdoc appointments at U.S. universities, 30,000 were in the biological and life sciences fields. • Federal research funding for general science has dropped every year since FY 2001. Back then it was 6.3 percent of the total federal R&D budget. In fiscal year 2006, following a proposed decrease of $59 million over last year, general science will account for 5 percent of the total federal R&D Budget. Sources: National Science Foundation, National Association of Colleges and Employers

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