LifeSciKY is one of the flagship businesses at the OneNKY Center in Covington, but what do they actually do?
Essentially, LifeSciKY provides areas for bioscience companies and scientific entrepreneurs to rent lab equipment and space to carry out scientific experiments. Think of it like a co-working space or an incubator… but for science.
LifeSciKY invited several elected officials to tour the facility and learn about its work and tenant companies on Wednesday. During the event, some scientists taught officials the basics of lab work. The scientists also talked about the focus of their research.
“These things were not here when we opened up last year,” said Christin Godale, LifeSciKY’s executive director. “We’ve been working very, very hard to find not only entrepreneurs that want to create companies but entrepreneurs that want to build the Commonwealth of Kentucky.”
LifeSciKY had eight signed clients, as of Wednesday, Godale said, and was in the process of signing two more.
The point of renting a space isn’t only to engage in basic scientific research but to eventually bring the results of that research to scale in the broader biomedical market. Products under development could include pharmaceutical therapeutics (i.e. medicines for treating diseases and symptoms), as well as the development of biomedical tools and diagnostic equipment.
During Wednesday’s event, some of the tenant researchers led the officials in using pipettes, handheld lab tools used for measuring and transferring liquid. They’re a common tool used to divide sample liquids into smaller portions in a process called aliquoting. Aliquoting is an essential skill for the kind of genetic and biomedical research happening at LifeSciKY.
Covington Mayor Ron Washington, Kentucky Sen. Chris McDaniel, Campbell County Judge/Executive Steve Pendery and Kenton County Commissioner Beth Sewell all got a crash course in aliquoting on Wednesday.
Four of the scientists working at the facility talked about their research.
Ameet Chimote, a scientist with Mitsui Chemicals America, an American offshoot of a large Japanese biomedical company that moved into the building earlier this year, discussed his research into growing organ cells for experimental testing.
“If I am testing a drug that affects the liver, I can grow liver cells on the petri dish, and then I add the drug in that petri dish to see how the liver cells are responding, to see how the drug will work, whether it works or not, and whether it works better or not,” Chimote said.
Melissa Smith, CEO of Clareo Biosciences, discussed her company’s work studying genetic variation in immune responses.
“The problem that we’re trying to solve, that especially as the mother of an eight-year-old I can relate to, is why some people get sick, and some people don’t,” said Smith.
Smith said her company’s research focuses on how variations in people’s genomes affect how and why they get sick. By understanding that, researchers can develop more effective vaccines and treatments and reduce side effects.
“So, what is the same and what is different between each of us that make us each have a distinct, unique profile of how we will respond to infection, respond to vaccination, respond to immunotherapy and cancer?” said Smith. “Can we map those differences and then use them to predict how you will respond?”
Clareo Biosciences has already secured two contracts with Sanofi, a French pharmaceutical company and one of the world’s leading vaccine manufacturers.
Melinda Chu, the CEO of Ecotera Home, is working on a tool that measures the presence of microplastics in water, urine and blood. Microplastics have been suspected of being detrimental to human health, although the research into microplastics is limited compared to some other health phenomena. Eventually, she would like to develop therapeutics for microplastic exposure, but for now she’s working on an AI tool that detects microplastics in liquid when they’re exposed to a plant-based reagent.
“There’s an optical signature based off of the different concentrations in mixed samples,” Chu said.
Finally, Meisam Naeimi, a Co-Founder of CARTx Therapeutics and UC professor of pediatrics, is developing a method of treating cancer by stimulating the body’s immune response to target cancer cells. Treatment methods like this already exist, but they’re expensive to produce, Naeimi said, about half a million dollars to produce a single dose currently.
“I invented a method that now costs $10,000 a dose, and we can make hundreds of doses from each production,” Naeimi said.
“Meisam and his team and our team have talked about working together,” said Smith. “We do our genetic profiling on their cells and identify which donors may create the most effective cancer-fighting [immune] cells.”
“Everyone that we accepted to the incubator has the mission to build and lead in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and make sure that we are delivering excellence…,” said Godale. “No pressure, guys.”