A Diagnostics & Imaging Week

Fonar (Melville, New York) reported that it has been awarded a contract from the Defense Supply Center Philadelphia (DSCP), part of the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), to supply the Fonar Upright MRI scanner and related line of MR products.

DSCP is the contracting agency of DoD for the purchase of all medical supplies, pharmaceuticals, food and related subsistence products, and all clothing and textiles.

DoD's contract is for purchases of the Fonar Upright MRI by all U.S. military hospitals, clinics and other federal agencies around the world, including the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The DLA supplies the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Marine Corps, VA hospitals and other federal agencies and clinics.

"These armed forces divisions supplied by DLA now have direct access to the Fonar Upright MRI for the diagnosis of injuries sustained by military personnel where they can now be evaluated in their fully weight-loaded erect posture," said Raymond Damadian, president and founder of Fonar.

The contract is the standard length of one year and may be extended for a one-year term each year thereafter. The DoD agency has estimated its expected annual purchases of Fonar's Upright MRI, but the company may pursue unlimited sales of its equipment beyond the initial estimated amount.

Positron (Houston), a manufacturer of positron emission tomography (PET) medical devices, said that it has agreed to fund Niagara University's Academic Center for Integrated Sciences (Niagara Falls, New York).

The funding is to be used exclusively to support Niagara University's undergraduate biology and chemistry students for research work on a collaborative medico-informatics project with the Academic Center.

The research initiative will be conducted at the Heart Center of Niagara and evaluate the prognostic and diagnostic utility of PET to guide and monitor coronary disease reversal and prevention therapy. Patients who have had more than one PET study and have had their pre-test disease risk assessed by Cadenza software are included in the retrospective analysis. The resulting data will be submitted for publication in select peer reviewed medical journals.

Joseph Oliverio, president of Positron, said, "There is an emerging trend in medicine where patients are able to choose medical management vs. surgical treatment of coronary disease. The research being performed in Niagara will not only attempt to demonstrate the ability to reverse disease non-surgically but more importantly introduce cardiac PET as the preferred imaging modality by cardiologists to guide therapy setting the stage for a new imaging center model."

Positron manufactures advanced medical imaging devices utilizing PET technology under the trade name Posicam systems.

In other grants/contracts news:

• SpectRx (Norcross, Georgia) reported that its contract with the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA; Bethesda, Maryland) to develop a device to continuously monitor alcohol in the human body was increased by $900,000 and extended for another year. The value of the contract awarded to date is $3.2 million. An additional $500,000 may be awarded in 2007 at NIAAA's option. SpectRx said.

"The contract increase … is a further validation of our unique method of painlessly sensing the presence and level of substances in the body without drawing blood," said Mark Samuels, SpectRx chairman and CEO. "Testing to date indicates that alcohol may be detected and its concentration levels continuously monitored using our interstitial fluid sampling and sensor technology. In addition to sensing alcohol levels, we believe that our sensing technology may be applied as a platform technology to measure other biological analytes, such as glucose for diabetes."

SpectRx coordinates the program and expects to receive about one-third of the additional funds. Childrens Hospital Los Angeles is the primary subcontractor.

The device is designed to detect alcohol abuse in critical job functions, such as airline pilots or in the criminal justice system. Results would be transmitted to a remote monitoring station.

Alcohol levels are currently measured by taking and analyzing a blood sample or through the use of a Breathalyzer, systems limited for certain applications because they can only take one measurement at a time and cannot track changes in bodily alcohol levels continuously over time.

The device under development tests for alcohol in interstitial fluid (ISF), a clear, water-like fluid that surrounds cells in the body. A laser painlessly creates four microscopic holes, or micropores, in the outer dead layer of skin through which a stream of ISF is drawn into a patch and tested for alcohol. The micropores are just slightly larger than a human hair and a feature of the laser allows the pores to penetrate only the outer layer of cells.

SpectRx is developing a sensor and has adapted its ISF acquisition technology for alcohol measurement. Childrens Hospital Los Angeles is developing the systems necessary for data processing, analysis and integration. If the R&D is successful, SpectRx will commercialize the device.

SpectRx develops solutions for insulin delivery and glucose monitoring, marketing the SimpleChoice line of diabetes management products, which include insulin pump disposable supplies. It also plans to develop a consumer device for continuous glucose monitoring.

The company also is commercializing a non-invasive cervical cancer detection technology through its subsidiary, Guided Therapeutics, which SpectRx will separately finance.

• Cyntellect (San Diego) said it will receive about $500,000 under a Phase IIB Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for continued development of its laser-based LEAP system for enhancing RNA interference (RNAi) applications. The grant will fund further development of the LEAP-enabled LaserFect technology for high-efficiency, low-toxicity delivery of siRNA into cells that are typically refractory to standard transfection techniques.

The Phase IIB grant program from NSF provides matching funds up to $500,000 to companies that meet goals of their Phase II grant and are able to secure additional non-governmental investments.

"This … funding directly recognizes the significant progress Cyntellect has made over the past year in developing and demonstrating the value of laser-based siRNA delivery," said Dr. Fred Koller, president and chief technology officer.

Cyntellect's uses high-speed cell imaging and laser-based manipulation to develop products that enable cell imaging, purification and transfection capabilities to enhance the productivity of laboratory research, recombinant protein production, high-content cellular assays, functional genomics and proteomics and cell purification, including processing of cells for therapeutic transplantation.