Bringing technology to the public the Automatic Glycomolecule Sequencing

Bringing technology to the public the Automatic Glycomolecule Sequencing Issue:

I was involved with glycobiology only through the network and the Web by joining the mythological EGC conferences (Electronic Glycosciences Conference). It the later part of the first five years of the 1990s. I was at the time involved with structural biology, crystallography and NMR which were in the nature of my PhD dissertation.
I was interested in bio-computing and saw glycomolecules as a dramatic source of multiple-, yet specific-, connectivity and by thus a chance for a new bio-algebra. I decided to pursue my next Post Doc opportunity in this arena and join a leading laboratory in Israel in the "hands on" (wet) biology sector.
I then found out that I joined a central core field in the life sciences that was ill equipped compared to its counterparts, the DNA and RNA world where sequencing were as easy as a cook book solution (by no mean as easy as it is today). And protein sequencing where at the Protein Society meeting in Davos in 1995 a revolution was announced in bringing in the multiplexed MS solutions.
Carbohydrate analysis was still in the 1960s. A method that was only accessible to the few good guys, who could speak ivy-league English and the Oxbridge accent of it. And, the control of the technology gave them control of the field. And the field was lagging but coming to age due to life science progress.
The glycosequencing field needed decentralization to have a chance to compete the other LS fields and with a group of young web based individuals we started a process.
We had a regular scheduled meetings on BioMOO the life science virtual reality club (many years before second life) we gave bioinformatics courses for networking and we started up. The lectin database was one of them.
I was into the activity without any groundbreaking idea, and it was OK, we initiated the Automatic GlycoSequencing before 2005 forum as a lobby group, and we also started writing in the secondary magazines about the activities but also poring the ideas.
By 1998 I was a member of the community with almost no major contribution in glycosciences, but with a perfect understanding of the issues of glycosequencing and its role in the life-sciences and in glycobiology.
I was nevertheless working on Glycoseamino Glycoans and Heparan Solphate as a living. And was promoting one of the first multiplexing diagnostic initiatives.
In a cold dark Jerusalem night a solution dawned on me (my English is good enough to understand the how problematic it was). And in a meeting in a small coffee shop called "Café Katan" on a small napkin I put what is to be soon Glycodata and later Procognia and Nutricognia's technology. My partner at the time Ilan was with me at the conception. This is not about the coming of a company of age. This is about the innovative conception. About how an idea is coming to age. Not all innovations take forever to start, mine do.
In 2000 Glycodata became Procognia, by 2005 glycosequencing is available to all in services and in kits sold.

metal detection

Metal detection:

It was 1997 and I was with Sensei in Sendai on our way down to the house in Toyama, my first experience in rural Japanese. They called it the house or the cabin in Toyama and said it was Spartan or traditional or Classic, and I was building a cold. In the morning we were to go down to the fishing port to see the coming fish for fresh material for sensei students. His Students were mostly heads of Scientific groups, mostly PhDs already and many were Professors.
Sensei would collect good material and send it to them mostly giant squids, but often other organisms some are harder to find. I was building a cold and was to spend the next three days under the fog of a cold. But I was to experience a handful of Japan Sea's culinary experience and meet a handful of Fishermen and sea-man.
I also met the chair of the Fishery Union of Toyama. We ate fish and sashimi of all sort and flavor – I only refused to eat "Fugo", a thrill I was not up to – and we talked about the sea and about fish. Being cold and the amount of Japanese spoken and mixed in English made it even more interesting. Sensei had a prefect English, and a cigarette in hand at all times, a true chain smoker and a healthy one.
We have seen a giant squid of 2-3 meters coming from the deep sea, and all the goodies of the Toyama bay. And I already remember Sensei saying that we need to better understand marine biology and the sea if we want to keep on enjoying the things the sea offers.
I kept on following the fishing world ever since, through several devastating incidents of metal pollutions, through major recalls with environmental background and through the wake of the world to the situation.
I have seen numbers building and economic burden ever increasing.
In 2006 I was on the advisory committee of a small biotech in the field of biocapturing, when I was asked to advice on capturing target. By then it was clear to me metal detection is going to be the next biotech haven – and I said so, They decided to run after a medical target. Two years later a set of metal capturing molecules was already worth billions. It still is.
The market for detection of metals and the metal risk cost market are now several tens of billion dollars and the damages incurred since the conversation is measured in hundreds of billion dollars and the mountains of metal risks to the food drink and building industries are unmeasured in dollars.
Biocapturing of metals and biosensing metals and metal ions is simple, yet untapped opportunity still today. Their toxicity imply on organism selectivity and thus the opportunity. There must be a selective biomeasure for each of the current known metal pollutant.

ברוכים הבאים

הבלוג הזה נועד להכתב באנגלית ועם דוברי העיברית הסליחה.
אבל בלי מילה בעיברית הרי אי אפשר - אז להלן כמה:
"חדשנות ועוד" היא הגדרה כוללת של תהליך בו צפית פני העתיד, וגילוי חוסר קיים או עתידי בסופו של דבר מביאים לתהליך
ששיאו במוצר חדש או בתהליך חדש או מהלך חדש(מודל עיסקי בשמו הנפוץ).
אין חדשנות בלי משבר והעת בה אנו נמצאים מתאימה מעין כמוה ל"חדשנות ועוד"
בכוונתי לסקור אנקדוטלית חדשנויות כמו גם חוסרים.

welcome

welcome