NASA Technology Commercialization Review
n its efforts to guide Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II winners toward successful commercialization, NASA assigned the National Technology Transfer Center (NTTC) with the task of technology commercialization review, to be performed by their expert review board. The purpose of the review is to help SBIR Phase I and II winners reach Phase III, a stage of further development of research from technology product to commercial product.
NASA's SBIR winners had presented innovative biomedical technologies to an expert review board in Houston on November 10 and 11, 1997. A recent review held in Del Mar, California, in March 1998 focused on advanced composite materials technologies. At the first review in Houston, the expert review board made comments and recommendations for each company presenting its biomedical technology fully developed, tested and readied for commercialization under SBIR Phase II. The most common recommendations made to the four companies demonstrating the technologies summarized below were: to clarify their goals or vision; to complete or improve on their business development plans; to partner with a knowledgeable expert or established company to overcome initial significant hurdles; to pursue patent protection; and to explore other potential applications for their technology to counter competing technologies.
The following is a summary of the technology partnership opportunities for new product development and commercialization of the technologies that were developed through NASA SBIR:
Neuroskill Biomedical Instrument
(Presented by VeriFax Corporation, Boulder, Colorado)A NASA SBIR-developed patented device ready for commercialization is a new twist to handwriting analysis that could help shed light on a number of causes, cures and preventions for cognitive decline and be highly beneficial in the health and security industries. Instead of studying how the handwriting appears, the designers focused on how a person writes. The device translates the writing dynamics of acceleration and pressure into complex signals. Each dynamic is represented by 1,000 data points on a millisecond time scale, giving as output very precise measurements of deterioration in stability, smoothness and synchronization of an individual's motor skill control level.
Neuromuscular diseases, toxic inhalation, drug or alcohol abuse, brain cell oxygen depletion, and sustained and intense stress all can be the cause of handwriting deterioration, and the diagnosis or early detection of any of these can be a result of human motor system handwriting dynamics analysis. Relevant benefits also include decreased doctor's visits, the avoidance of unnecessary hospitalization, patient complication monitoring, telemedicine applications and proper balance in prescriptions.
This technology could be useful in quantifying change in motor skill before and after medication is given—and also at different times of day and in different activities and locations. Integrating it could diminish the number of doctor's visits and avoid unnecessary hospitalization for monitoring patients in the case of complications.
Telemedicine applications of great value are a capability to electronically transfer information about neuromuscular performance to a neurologist or a medical specialist at any location, giving access to specialized neurological care for both the patient and doctor. Remote rural areas could be particularly affected, reducing costs while bringing medical care to those who might not otherwise receive it.
By studying handwriting deterioration to reflect motor skill control levels, other applications could include substance abuse screening and detection, monitoring for toxic inhalants and environmental distress, and accurate signature identification for security/privacy protection and forgery detection. Target markets could include neuromuscular disease centers, drug and alcohol abuse clinics, occupational health centers and the security industry.
Miniaturized Biochemical Assays Using Novel Surface Plasmon Resonance Detection
(Presented by Physical Optics Corporation, Torrance, California)The transformation of chemical concentration changes into optical signals will make it possible to observe shifts in surface plasmon polariton (SPP) resonances caused by the analysis of plasma-deposited polymer films. A proposal to investigate the feasibility of a novel biochemical optical sensor concept could result in a new approach to the detection of surface plasmon-induced optical changes that could be applied in a broad spectrum of online chemical analysis instrumentation, from immunosensors to hydrocarbon detectors, with the potential to dramatically increase the sensitivity and range of such sensors.
Physical Optics Corporation proposed to incorporate its Optical Multilexor, a technology developed through NASA SBIR work, on a computer for low cost and customer convenience. One part of the system would not do everything, but task-specific add-ons could be purchased. Instead of the current practice of taking the instrument to the client, the instrument would already be in place; therefore, only the part itself would be taken to the instrument, and there would be more unity within the client company.
In-house software would be used to design Prism-based SPP devices to conclusively demonstrate the feasibility of the proprietary plasmon approach. These devices would help accomplish molecular recognition by means of the immunoglobin G(IgG)/anti-IgG immunochemical system. The next phase would upgrade and conduct practical testing of Prism-based multi-analyte devices, using optical wave guides to achieve full optical integration in plasmon/polymer sensors and constructing multiplexed multi-analyte versions of the proposed device.
The technology started by looking at the chemical structure of oxygen, and the company developed it to other capabilities. Physical Optics wants to take the working prototype into production.
Liquid Dispersion and Encapsulation of Drugs
(Presented by Institute for Research, Inc., Houston)The commercialization of a new drug delivery process could provide new treatment media and drug therapies that, up to this point, never existed or could not be administered because they were drugs that could not be combined for delivery or were considered ineffective and undeliverable. Encapsulation technology is the key to this enhanced delivery method for existing drugs and therapeutics. The enhancement is forming unique bioactive drug-filled microcapsules that, by way of diffusion, are delivered to a targeted organ or body tissue where only the targeted area is treated, leaving untouched the areas surrounding the targeted treatment area. It also promotes the use of insoluble drugs in liquid.
The production of multilayered microspheres with alternate hydrophobic and hydrophilic compartments opens up the possibility of developing multiple-therapy microcapsules that can allow sequential diffusion of two or more drugs from the same microcapsules once they arrive at the target tissue. Multiple-drug microcapsules could be used to deliver a chemotherapeutic drug to kill tumor cells and then deliver a substance to aid or stimulate the immune system's response to the tumor.
Larger, more uniform microcapsules open up more possibilities to treat highly vascular tumors (liver and kidney) with chemo-embolization, which would involve the injection of these microcapsules into an artery catheter, forming an artificial emboli, or blockage, cutting off the blood supply to the tumor. The reduced blood volume that flows past the tumor becomes loaded with the anti-tumor drug that scatters out of the microcapsules, thus increasing the chemotherapeutic dose to the tumor cells.
Microgravity experiments lead to the development of this microcapsule technology by eliminating the density problems that occur with phase separations of nonmixable liquids having different densities. Many cytotoxic or bioactive drugs cannot be injected intravenously. Others can, but they quickly degrade before reaching the target tissue or are cleared from the blood too quickly to allow a useful biological half-life. Properly designed microcapsules can provide unique methods of direct delivery by parenteral injection, nasal inhalation and dermal administration for sustained release of important bioactive drugs.
This technology allows for the co-encapsulation of liquids and mediums that previously could not be mixed, enabling a far more effective treatment—one that may not even have existed before this. A unique drug delivery system could be visualized by radiological or computerized tomography scanning to ensure that the cytotoxic drug is delivered directly to the target tumor.
Use of Interactive Physician's Notes to Support Medical Diagnosis and Recovery Management
(Presented by Seers Systems Inc., Pittsburgh)Epistemic Abductive Goal Oriented Language (EAGOL) is a decision support software tool based on a NASA SBIR Phase I contract that provides online, real-time diagnosis and recovery management. This tool permits a more ad hoc, goal-oriented style of decisionmaking and closes the loop in health care records, recognizing actions taken and allowing feedback to establish communication between the physician and the patient record. It is intended to provide an infrastructure that combines an electronic patient record with dynamic health care goals, methods and responsibilities of the various participants in the health care enterprise: physicians and supporting medical staff, hospital and health maintenance organization (HMO) administrations, insurance companies, and public health and other health care policy interests.
An application of EAGOL, called MEDEAGOL, is a reasoning engine that can maintain the rationalization process over the extended period of a patient's illness and can fit the temporal architecture of the patient record. MEDEAGOL combines a capability for real-time process diagnosis and recovery management with goal-oriented protocol generation and interpretation.
EAGOL's benefits and potential markets include increased consistency and quality of care, serving as a decision and information support framework for health care professionals, teaching hospitals and remote medical facilities to better manage patients and more effectively adhere to hospital and HMO policies. EAGOL provides protection against inaccurate documentation and satisfies the justification demands from insurance companies, physicians and hospital administrators or others concerned with payment and cost containment. The software will be ready for commercialization in November 1998.
For information about these technologies, contact Shaik Mazharullah at
the National Technology Transfer Center (NTTC).
Call (800) 678-6882, E-mail: smazharullah@nttc.edu
For information about the commercialization reviews, contact Sunni Richmond at NTTC.
Call (800) 678-6882, E-mail: srichmond@nttc.edu
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Brevard County corporation, a tenant of the Florida/NASA Business Incubation Center in Titusville, has signed a license agreement with NASA to commercialize the Particle Fallout/Activity Sensor, developed at NASA's Kennedy Space Center to detect the accumulation of potentially damaging dust and fibers on sensitive payload components. The agreement, arranged by Kennedy's Technology Programs and Commercialization Office, grants Technical Applications Unlimited (TAU), Inc., a patent license for the Particle Fallout/Activity Sensor. The agreement was signed by NASA General Counsel Edward A. Frankle and TAU Research Director Clyde F. Parrish.
TAU was incorporated about a year ago as a tenant of the Florida/NASA Business Incubator Center, which was created in 1996 to assist entrepreneurs and small businesses by offering office space at a reduced cost and providing technical assistance to tenants. The center is located at the Titusville campus of Brevard Community College.
Parrish said his company was formed as an opportunity to further develop new technology coming from Kennedy Space Center. His client list is growing for the Real Time Optical Fallout Monitor, which is selling in the price range of $4,000 to $5,000 a unit. Contract employees are using the Business Incubator Center facility to hand-assemble the units, with parts custom-made in Brevard County. Parrish is continuing to refine the monitor, he explained, and most of his marketing is done at trade shows across the country. He envisions adding full-time employees as business picks up.
Potential commercial uses are many, Parrish pointed out. The sensor can be applied to contamination monitoring in clean rooms and industrial applications, such as pharmaceutical or semiconductor manufacturing. The sensor can also be used in activity monitoring, such as medical patient monitoring and security systems, and in air handling assessment.
The inventors are Kennedy employees Curtis M. Ihlefeld, Dr. Robert C. Youngquist, John S. Moerk and Kenneth A. Rose III. The sensor works by measuring relative amounts of dust or other particles, which collect on a mirror in an area to be monitored. The prototype sensor included a sensor module and a data acquisition module, both of which could be operated independently of one another or in combination with one another. Parrish said the new product comes as a single unit.
The sensor includes a microprocessor-controlled module that detects a particle accumulation on a sensor surface and converts this information into digital data. The invention monitors particle fallout over a period of time at specified intervals, and it can store both the magnitude and time of occurrence of the sensed particle fallout in memory.
For more information, contact Gale Allen at Kennedy Space Center.
Call (407) 867-6226,
Fax: (407) 867-2050,
E-mail: gale.allen-1@kmail.ksc.nasa.gov
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