Northwest Louisiana Develops Culture of Bioscience Innovation
Published May 18, 2009
A researcher inoculates sterile media with PET radiopharmaceuticals at InterTech Science Park.
Health care is one of Northwest Louisiana’s largest economic sectors, but a growing bioscience industry is giving the region a substantial research and development presence as well.
Some formidable supporters are helping make it happen. Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center-Shreveport and three major private hospitals are within a short distance of each other.
The Biomedical Research Institute has 56 labs occupied by LSU researchers and scientists studying diseases such as stroke, cancer, arthritis and Alzheimer’s. It is a public-private partnership that also houses the administrative offices of the Biomedical Research Foundation of Northwest Louisiana.
The biomedical foundation was founded in 1986 amid an oil industry bust to help diversify a regional economy.
“Our focus is more on increasing new company startups, because we are not a hub location,” says Dennis Lower, the foundation’s vice president of business development. “We are focusing on growing our own and creating an infrastructure that supports emergence of different companies, and support services and activity that will nurture emerging companies.”
InterTech Science Park is a major component of that mission. The 300-acre campus gives tenants access to academic facilities, wet labs, office space, researchers, venture capital and business planning. Biomedical and biotechnology firms are one of InterTech’s four target industry sectors.
The park includes manufacturing space, too, plus another 500 acres to grow. Occupancy across all the buildings is 75 percent.
“We feel good about that,” Lower says.
The Positron Emission Tomography Center is another key initiative. The foundation operates three stand-alone nuclear imaging centers that create three-dimensional representations of biological processes. PET is a powerful diagnostic tool, especially in areas such as oncology, cardiology and neurology.
Southern Isotopes, a wholly owned foundation subsidiary, is taking PET to new levels.
Southern Isotopes already does clinical screening and provides research isotopes to universities but the plans don’t stop there. “Our business plan includes taking it into the private sector and developing diagnostic and therapeutic drugs,” Lower says.
Southern Isotopes is involved in multiple clinical trials. It is working on an agent that binds to plaque in the brain that causes Alzheimer’s so the disease can be diagnosed in a living patient. Even better, the technology will allow researchers to actually see if drug therapies are working in the brain.
“When you start getting into the brain, it is very difficult to do any research on living patients. PET has really allowed us to take a look at all those receptors, ” says Chris Vascoe, the company’s research lab manager.
PET could also advance diagnosis and treatment for Parkinson’s, rheumatoid arthritis, pancreatitis and primary brain tumors.
“We can look inside the human body without cutting it open,” Vascoe says. “And you can do it at different time frames.”
Story by Pamela Coyle
Photo by Antony Boshier
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