don cooper boulder channel 1 cu-boulder startup company receives grant

8/3/2015 Boulder Channel 1 CU-Boulder startup company receives Gates Foundation exploration grant

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CUBoulder startup company receivesGates Foundation exploration grantNovember 2, 2012 3:54 pm by Channel 1 Networks, under Boulder Startup, Business, CU News, Health,Fitness & Medical, Tech & Science. 0 CommentsA new startup company that sprang from the University of Colorado Boulder this year is a Grand ChallengesExploration winner, an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Psychology and neurosciences department Associate Professor Don Cooper, cofounder and chief science officer ofMobile Assay Inc. of Boulder who developed the technology in his laboratory at CUs Institute for BehavioralGenetics, will pursue an innovative global health and development research project titled A Lab on MobileDevice Platform for Seed Testing.

Grand Challenges Explorations, or GCE, funds individualsworldwide who are taking innovative approaches to some ofthe worlds toughest and most persistent global health anddevelopment challenges. GCE invests in the early stages ofbold ideas that have real potential to solve problems peoplein the developing world face every day. Cooper and MobileAssay Inc. are one of more than 80 Grand ChallengesExploration Round 9 grants for $100,000 each announcedtoday by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Coopers Mobile Assay Inc. team has developed newtechnology which includes using mobile devices, teststrips (similar to pregnancy test strips), geographical tagging and cloud computing to rapidly detect, quantifyand track common seedborne pathogens in real time to address the economic impact of seedborne diseases indeveloping countries. This will ultimately allow farmers in developing countries to identify and track pathogensinfecting seeds and share their data, which could improve crop yields and prevent crop losses, he said.

Investments in innovative global health research are already paying off, said Chris Wilson, director of theGlobal Health Discovery and Translational Sciences at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. We continue to beimpressed by the novelty and innovative spirit of Grand Challenges Explorations projects and are enthusiasticabout this exciting research. These investments hold real potential to yield new solutions to improve the healthof millions of people in the developing world, and ensure that everyone has the chance to live a healthyproductive life.

To receive funding, Grand Challenge Exploration Round 9 winners demonstrated in a twopage online applicationa creative idea in one of five critical global health and development topic areas that included agriculturaldevelopment, immunization and communications. Applications for the current open round, Grand ChallengesExploration round 10, will be accepted through Nov. 7, 2012.

Test strips are typically plastic with chemically impregnated pads designed to react with specific antibodies toproduce a specific visual signal. Once the reaction takes place, the strip is developed in less than 10 minutes andthe visual signal is quantified using the camera on a smartphone or mobile tablet device and proprietarysoftware. There are now Lab on Mobile Devicecompatible tests strips that are used to identify more than 1,000different pathogens and pollutants.

A crucial part of the LMD project developed by Cooper and his team is Mobile Image Ratiometry, or MIR, which isa unique software algorithm that analyzes images and can precisely quantify the level of infection of croppathogens, which are then mapped and shared via cloud computing that uses both software and hardware overthe Internet. The LMD technology will allow for the creation of electronic pushpin maps where data will bemade available on an openly shared website, enabling anyone to upload results and track outbreaks andinfestations of seedborne pathogens, ultimately helping people better regulate the informal exchanges of seeds,

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he said.

Cooper said the team will initially target the fungus Botrytis which candevastate crops like yams, potatoes, wheat, soybeans, onions and sorghumaround the world as well as aflotoxins, which can contaminate seedsduring storage and which are among the most carcinogenic substancesknown. Cooper said the MIR imaging technology can be used to increase thesensitivity of test strips including those for Botrytis and for aflotoxinsproduced by Aspergillis fungi by a factor of 100.

Experts estimate seedborne diseases cause a loss of 50 million tons of foodannually and that losses in developing countries are 60 to 80 percent higherthan in industrialized countries. Estimates show 90 to 95 percent of seedused by smallscale and subsistence farmers is acquired through informalsources at the farm and community level.

It is estimated that by 2015 there will be more than 2 billion people in theworld using smartphones, including more than 40 percent of the people inAfrica. The Mobile Assay Inc. team also is developing a web application

capable of performing test image analysis for those without smartphones but who have cell phones with cameras.Such an application would be extremely useful in Africa, said Cooper, where there are now an estimated 700million cell phone subscribers nearly 70 percent of the continents population. The vast majority of cell phonestoday are equipped with cameras.

CU owns exclusive license to the technology developed by Cooper and his team and has an equity share in MobileAssay Inc. Cooper and Lee Burnett, the CEO of Mobile Assay Inc., worked closely with CUs Technology TransferOffice, CUs Entrepreneurial Law Clinic and the Innovation Center of the Rockies to develop a corporate structureand commercialization plans for the CU spinoff company.

Cooper said Mobile Assay Inc. will seek matching funds for the first phase of the project from the Colorado Officeof Economic Development and International Trade. In addition to the Gates Foundation grant for seed testing,Mobile Assay Inc. is in the process of applying the companys new technology to detect water pollutants, drugs,contaminants in dairy products and other biological and chemical pathogens across the globe.

The LMD platform, which can target multiple pathogens like fungi, bacteria and parasites, also could conceivablybe used to help monitor chronic diseases in humans, Cooper said. While ill people often go to doctors fordiagnoses and additional tests that can take days or weeks, a number of health tests ranging from highcholesterol to abnormal thyroidstimulating hormone levels could be conducted at home using specific test strips,with the data made available immediately to their health care providers over the Internet.

Grand Challenges Explorations is a $100 million initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.Launched in 2008, over 700 people in 45 countries have received Grand Challenges Explorations grants. The grantprogram is open to anyone from any discipline and from any organization. The initiative uses an agile,accelerated grantmaking process with short twopage online applications and no preliminary data required.Initial grants of $100,000 are awarded two times a year. Successful projects have the opportunity to receive afollowon grant of up to $1 million.

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