 Claes Wahlestedt, center, with research assistants Ahmad Khalil, left, and Mohammad Ali Faghihi [Photo: Richard Graulich/The Palm Beach Post] |
Claes Wahlestedt
Scripps Florida/CuRNA
Professor and director of neuroscience discoveries at Scripps Florida, Claes Wahlestedt researches non-coding RNA — once referred to as “junk DNA” but now acknowledged to play an important role in many diseases.
His research has shown that non-coding RNA plays a key role in regulating gene expression, including one form that is directly linked to increased levels of plaque in Alzheimer’s patients’ brains. He also discovered a new gene that is involved in Fragile X syndrome, one of the leading causes of mental disabilities. He also led a team that uncovered a potential new target for treating schizophrenia. He and colleague Tom Bannister, associate scientific director of medicinal chemistry at the Translational Research Institute, recently won a two-year grant from the NIH’s National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism to study new agents intended to curb the craving for alcohol.
In 2008 Wahlestedt, who has both M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Lund in Sweden, co-founded spinoff company CuRNA. He is chief science officer at the company, which is researching using non-coding RNA technology licensed from Scripps to develop disease therapies. CuRNA is looking into treatments for everything from cancer to diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, nerve regeneration for treatment of paralysis and wound healing. It is developing drugs that amplify the body’s own healing potential.
The holder of several patents, Wahlestedt was founding director of Astra-Zeneca Research Center Montreal and then of the Center for Genomics and Bioinformatics at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, before joining Scripps Florida in 2005. He was also director of genomics and biotechnology with Pharmacia & Upjohn in that nation.
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Jeffrey Krischer
University of South Florida
Jeffrey Krischer has earned $408 million in NIH grants in two years, mostly to run data centers for big international diabetes trials and the NIH’s Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network (RDCRN). Researchers funnel their data to him for collection, storage, management and analysis.
A professor and chief of epidemiology and biostatistics for the USF College of Medicine’s department of pediatrics, he has been largely responsible for making USF a hub for epidemiological research in rare diseases and juvenile diabetes. His diabetes work touches nearly every major Type 1 diabetes prevention study in the world. His team established an international data coordinating center that is expected to record and track more than 1 million samples over 15 years as part of studies to identify environmental triggers of Type 1 diabetes, a study known as TEDDY (The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young). And the team is also coordinating and analyzing data from TrialNet, which studies diabetes prevention in high-risk individuals, as well as treatment of newly diagnosed patients.
Krischer has been principal investigator for the RDCRN’s data coordinating center since its inception, coordinating 10 networks of studies, which will now increase to 19 networks with some $15 million in additional funding.
Krischer also holds the USF’s endowed chair in diabetes research.
 [Photo: David Blankenship] |
Deepika Singh
Sinmat
Hybrid cars, more efficient lighting and other smarter energy systems will need smarter microchips, and Deepika Singh and her company are developing new ways to manufacture them. Singh is co-founder and president of Gainesville-based Sinmat, which came up with a new slurry mixture used in the polishing process for next-generation microchips. The slurry helps in making smaller, more powerful chips. The chips’ potential for smart-energy applications motivated President Barack Obama to invite Singh to a press conference in March 2009, where he praised her and her company.
Sinmat was co-founded by Singh’s husband, University of Florida professor Rajiv Singh.
The company also makes “nano-sponges,” used in semiconductor manufacturing. The sponges compress without sticking to surfaces and then return to their original shape. Their softness makes them ideal for working with new, easily scratched materials used in next-generation chips.
The company is also developing materials for energy-efficient lighting.
 [Photo: Gene Bednarek] |
Lonnie Ingram
University of Florida
Lonnie Ingram and colleagues at UF developed a process for cost-effectively turning plant waste into clean-burning cellulosic ethanol fuel. It uses genetically modified E. coli bacteria to break down inedible plant material, such as wood wastes and sugar cane residue, into sugars that are then processed into fuel-grade ethanol. Licensed to Massachusetts-based Verenium Corp., Ingram’s ethanol process is already used at fuel plants in Japan and Louisiana. A second company, Massachusetts-based BioEnergy, licensed the rights from UF to use Ingram’s bacteria to produce chemicals for use in biodegradable plastics.
  Florida’s Greatest Research Hits Gatorade: The sports beverage developed at the University of Florida to keep its football players hydrated was innovative scientifically and also because of the licensing deal UF struck with Stokely-Van Camp in 1967. Quaker Oats later purchased the rights from Stokely-Van Camp and merged with Pepsico, which owns the rights today. Gatorade has brought more than $80 million to the university since 1973. |
In March, UF broke ground on the Stan Mayfield Biorefinery Pilot Plant, where research based on Ingram’s work will continue. Backed by $20 million in state funding, UF is building the plant at the Perry site of cellulose-based products manufacturer Buckeye Technologies.
Ingram, who holds 15 U.S. patents and 10 in other nations, is a distinguished professor of microbiology and cell science and director of UF’s Florida Center for Renewable Chemicals and Fuels. He advised President George W. Bush on cellulosic ethanol, and Gov. Charlie Crist appointed him to Florida’s Climate Change and Renewable Energy Action Team. In 2007, Verenium and BioEnergy paid their first royalty checks to UF.
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Margaret Pericak-Vance
University of Miami John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics
It’s rare that a single researcher can transform an entire institution, but Margaret Pericak-Vance’s arrival did exactly that for the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. A world-renowned genetics researcher, she was director of Duke University’s Center for Human Genetics when UM lured her away in 2007. She brought along some 60 faculty and staff, including her husband, Jeffrey Vance, who is professor and chair of the Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation Department of Human Genomics.
Pericak-Vance has continued to attract researchers and funding to the Institute for Human Genomics. Last year, it received $20 million from businessman John P. Hussman, who has been supporting her work for years. The state awarded the institute a $80-million grant in 2008.
Recently, Pericak-Vance was part of a team at UM and other universities that identified the first common genetic risk factor for autism spectrum disorder. She also led a team that discovered a gene that appears to be associated with late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, and she has done key research on genes linked to multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, macular degeneration and other diseases.
 [Photo:Bill Virun/IBM] |
Tom Creamer and Vic Moore
IBM
Tom Creamer (left) and Vic Moore were awarded more patents than any of IBM’s other Florida-based inventors last year. The two are part of a larger team working on “ghost agents,” processes attached remora-like to other software processes. They were initially developed to support massive multiplayer (MMP) games — recording, for instance, player actions for analysis or playback later. Ghost agents can record the actions of thousands of players, and those recordings may be used to create virtual players that, for example, test aspects of the game in a simulation. That frees a company from having to hire thousands of players to test the gaming environment. The applications for ghost agents extend beyond gaming to grid and large environments like cloud computing.