Fluid Imaging Technologies

Imaging device stirs a wave of excitement

Portland Press Herald
February 28, 2003

EDGECOMB, Maine — It seems everyone likes Fluid Imaging Technologies' instrument - everyone except the security guards at a recent trade show the company attended. Fluid Imaging's FlowCAM was so popular that the company's booth was packed as soon as the doors opened each day, said chief executive officer Kent Peterson. For four nights in a row, the guards had to ask Fluid Imaging staff to leave so the crowd would disperse and the show could close for the evening.

Fluid Image Technologies CEO Kent Peterson, left, and President Chris Sieracki with a prototype of a portable FlowCAM, a device that can monitor and image cells and particles in fluids.

"In 25 years (of being in business), I've never seen such a response," said Peterson, formerly president of KADY International, a Scarborough company that manufactures wastewater treatment machines. "Our booth was swamped the whole time."

Peterson knows that his company works with technology that can seem exciting. After all, the technology, which uses a sophisticated combination of lenses, lasers and digital cameras to identify particulates in water, is what drew him to the company.

"From the moment I learned of this technology, I was smitten," he said.

While initially born of and aimed at the marine-sciences market, Fluid Imaging is exploring other major markets - medical, water quality/safety and manufacturing - and Peterson believes the opportunities are about to explode.

"I think it's taking off in a classical definition. It's beyond start-up," said Peterson. "It's really in the emerging growth stage."

FlowCAM technology was developed at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in West Boothbay Harbor, and Fluid Imaging became Bigelow's first spinoff to exploit its commercial potential. The lab owns the patents and has exclusively licensed the technology to the company and is also part owner of the spinoff.

The FlowCAM is a continuous imaging flow cytometer - basically an instrument that microscopically analyzes liquid as it flows through the device, takes digital pictures of cells in the liquid, counts the cells and attempts to identify them.

A key part of the technology is the special lens, created by the company's president, Christian Sieracki, when he was a doctoral student at Dartmouth College.

The lens is etched with rings, making it look like a pond with ripples expanding out after a rock is dropped into it. The rings allow a microscope to separate the area it's studying while keeping each section in focus simultaneously. That allows the microscope to study a thicker sample than is normally possible.

While microscopes usually examine a specimen pressed flat on a slide underneath a slipcover, the liquid examined by the FlowCAM travels through a glass tube a millimeter thick.

As the water passes though the glass tube, a green laser shines through it. Organisms lit by the laser reflect back a certain color light, and a computer attached to the microscope is alerted by the light and takes a picture of the organism. This allows the computer to capture images only when an organism is present.

Marine researchers have so far used the device to examine ocean water and see what sort of microscopic organisms are present - an important function to detect dangerous parasites or algae such as red tide, which makes shellfish unsafe to eat.

Using the FlowCAM, scientists can immediately detect and see the organisms, rather than collecting samples, putting them on slides and visually scanning under a microscope. Fluid Imaging's device allows more water to be studied, faster.

At the recent trade show, said Peterson, one researcher told him "this device will do more work in one hour than I have done in 30 years."

Basing the technology on his lens, Sieracki came to Bigelow in the mid-'90s and developed the FlowCAM, making the first working model in 1996. When he presented the device at an oceanographic show, another scientist asked Sieracki to make him one. He did so, as an employee of Bigelow, but the research lab wasn't really set up for such contract work. Sieracki decided to found Fluid Imaging to commercialize the technology.

That decision sat well with Bigelow. The research lab had developed many new technologies, said director and chief executive officer Louis Sage, but traditionally allowed the innovations to enter the public domain for other companies to develop.

"Obviously, with the cost of doing science, a lot of institutions are starting to look at their intellectual property and trying to use that to invest in new research ideas," said Sage. "Basically, we've evolved into the recognition that this is a business like anything else."

Part of the drive behind the trend is that labs like Bigelow are run on public funds through grants, said Sage. The public likes to see its funds leveraged to make more funds for more research, he said. Having a successful spinoff like Fluid Imaging gives Bigelow a bit more status, and the eventual extra capital flow will help as the lab prepares to build a new facility. Bigelow hasn't realized any profits from Fluid Imaging yet, but it expects to do so, said Sage.

"I look back at all the innovations we've not taken advantage of and recognize we're going to have a lot more," said Sage. "We're right on the cusp of a whole new area that could lead to the production of a lot of pharmaceuticals from the sea. This could be a real advantage to the state."

U.S. Rep. Tom Allen, D-1st District, agrees. His office is writing letters of support for Fluid Imaging to the Environmental Protection Agency.

"Basically, research funds are very much tied to commercial spinoff and economic development in general," Allen said. "This company's a good example. This is exactly the kind of thing that you want to encourage."

So far, Fluid Imaging is operating on a series of small grants from groups such as the Maine Technology Institute and the Maine Manufacturing Extension Partnership, as well as its sales revenue.

The company has sold 15 of the devices, which range in price from $24,800 to $90,000, depending on the model.

Sieracki said the success of the devices is largely due to an unbiased peer review that was published in a technical journal several years ago. The peer review allowed the scientific community to accept the FlowCAM as a trustworthy device with verifiable results.

"When it goes through that kind of approval process, then you don't have the uncertainty of a brand-spanking new gear that's never been tested," he said. Scientists "don't want their results to be questionable. They get money if they do good science. If they don't do good science, they lose funding and have to flip burgers."

At this point, said Peterson, the company needs outside capital to continue its growth. He declined to say whether the company was profitable.

By changing the software and tweaking the technology, the device could easily be pushed into the manufacturing and medical industries, said Peterson.

The FlowCAM could take quality control in manufacturing to the next level, microscopically analyzing batches of product to ensure it falls within the company's parameters. In the medical field, the device could be used to microscopically study blood, counting cells and identifying them in one step, rather than in the several steps now needed.

One of the great potentials may be in homeland security. The devices could be used, largely unmodified, to monitor water supplies and automatically alert officials if any foreign agent - such as a biological terror agent - were introduced.

Fluid Imaging officials have spoken with several large municipal water companies, said Peterson, and the FlowCAM is regarded by the Environmental Protection Agency as a promising technology.

"Homeland security needs will involve having the capability of testing water very rapidly, so you know what's there," he said. "(This device) certainly does seem to have homeland implications."

© 2000-2003 Maine Science & Technology Foundation
Contact: MSTF Or mainescience.org