PITTSBURGH, June 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Cellumen, a new start up company formed by one of the region's leading life sciences entrepreneurs, D. Lansing Taylor, Ph.D., co-founder of both Biological Detection Systems, Inc. (BDS) and Cellomics, Inc., and the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse (PLSG), announced today that Cellumen, will be headquartered in Pittsburgh and will be taking space in the PLSG Incubator. Cellumen will form discovery partnerships with the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries using High Content Screening (HCS) with advanced, cell-based reagents and cell lines.
Dr. Taylor, one of the company's co-founders, joined with Dr. Alan Waggoner at Carnegie Mellon University to create Cellumen. The two have previously worked together to create other life sciences technologies and commercialize products at both BDS and Cellomics.
BDS developed the cyanine dyes that have become a standard fluorescent tag in numerous markets in the biotechnology industry (acquired by Amersham Biosciences in 1996), while Cellomics, Inc., accelerated the field of cellomics by creating the products and market for HCS and is the leader in this emerging market.
"There is now the opportunity to harness the HCS platform created by Cellomics, Inc., and to perform large-scale screens to both manipulate and measure cell constituents and functions," stated Dr. Taylor, who is Chief Executive Officer of Cellumen. "There is a major bottleneck in the advances in all life science markets from the need to understand the functions of genes, the protein molecular machines they encode, as well as non-coding, regulatory RNAs that are involved in normal and abnormal cell functions."
"Lans Taylor and Alan Waggoner broke new ground when they created BDS and Cellomics, helping to build a foundation not only for their own companies, but for the life sciences industry in western Pennsylvania," said Doros Platika, M.D., PLSG President and Chief Executive Officer. "At the PLSG, we are pleased to play an integral role in the formation of Cellumen by providing a headquarters location and the necessary support. We are confident that these two regional life sciences leaders will continue to advance the interests of the entire region's life sciences community by taking their visions to new levels through Cellumen."
At the outset of its formation, Cellumen will occupy 560 square feet of laboratory and office space at the PLSG Incubator facility and employ Dr. Taylor and Dr. Kenneth A. Giuliano, a principal scientist. It is anticipated that the company will employ 5-6 individuals by the end of its first year of operation.
Dr. Taylor was honored as one of the PLSG's first Life Sciences Pioneers in February 2004 for his many contributions to the life sciences in the region. He has published more than 140 scientific papers, served as editor to several books and has received several national and international awards and is among the first of Pittsburgh's life sciences entrepreneurs.
About Cellumen
Cellumen will be forming discovery partnerships with industry, as well as government and academic centers to more rapidly and deeply understand the functions of genes, proteins and regulatory RNA in living cells. The combined use of large-scale, High Content Screening with proprietary reagents, including engineered cell lines, will advance the early stages of drug discovery and the identification and function of cell-based molecular markers of disease. The advanced reagents and cell lines will also be commercialized broadly following an exclusive period of collaboration. Lumen is Latin for "understanding" and "light." Cellumen will be increasing our understanding of cells with light.
About the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse
The Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse is a public/private partnership, founded by the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, UPMC Health System, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and our regional foundation community. Together with private industry and advanced research and healthcare capabilities of our institutional partners, PLSG invests in and supports the growth of regional life sciences companies. The PLSG is focused on developing a portfolio of companies in the following industry sectors: drug discovery tools and targets, medical devices and diagnostics, tissues engineering and regenerative medicine and therapeutic strategies for neurological and psychiatric disorders.
Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse