About Coradyn
Coradyn Biosystems, LLC is a smart sensor materials company founded on the pioneering research of Dr. Nicholas Peppas and his research team. The company specializes in responsive, conductive polymers for detecting biological and chemical analytes. Coradyn’s proprietary platform involves an entirely new antibody-free and label-free detection chemistry, applicable to a number of analytes, formats and industries. Current applications of interest include wireless enabled sensors, handheld or high throughput clinical devices, and in-line biological or chemical sensors for industrial processing.
Applications
- Medical:
Antibody-free and label-free detection either in a clinical laboratory or as a hand-held or implanted device - Food and Beverage:
Real-time biomolecular detection of contaminants or pathogens in a retail store, food processing facility, or along the supply chain - Industry:
Real-time chemical detection of impurities or other analytes in an industrial plant, such as a water treatment facility
Initially, the company’s focus is on wireless technology for monitoring a biomolecular event. A potential outcome of this development includes a hand-held or touchless device that detects an analyte and sends a wireless signal to a central location, such as a nurse station, grocery store, blood center, or industrial laboratory.
Business Opportunity
Coradyn seeks strategic co-development partnerships with industry leaders. Co-development projects may begin with a feasibility agreement to develop a customer-specific solution.
Management
Coradyn Biosystems, LLC, is an Emergent Technologies Inc. (ETI) portfolio company and ETI provides all management services and operations support.
About Emergent Technologies, Inc.
Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Emergent Technologies, Inc. (ETI) is a life sciences technology investment and management company which provides early stage funding and development for scientific discoveries originating at universities and research institutions. The Company creates value by transforming scientific breakthroughs into technology platforms with multiple applications. ETI's unique innovation process enables the Company to select promising scientific discoveries for development, maximize the value of intellectual property and manage both cost and risk associated with the commercial development of early stage technologies. ETI is dedicated to turning research into revenue and, in the process, introducing compelling solutions to meet important market needs. For more information, visit the company website www.etibio.com
Chief Scientist
Nicholas Peppas, Sc.D.
Dr. Peppas is the Fletcher S. Pratt Chair of Chemical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Pharmaceutics at the University of Texas at Austin, and currently serves as Chief Scientist of Coradyn Biosystems, LLC.
Peppas is the leading researcher, inventor and pacesetter in the field of drug delivery and controlled release. He is widely recognized as the father of modern drug delivery. He has set the fundamentals and rational design of drug delivery systems and biomaterials over the past 35 years. He is also an international leader in biomaterials and bionanotechnology, and has contributed seminal work in the field of feedback controlled biomedical devices. His contributions have been translated into more than twenty medical products with multi-million dollar markets. For the profound impact of these theories and analyses, Peppas has been recognized as the most cited and highly published author in drug delivery, biomaterials and drug delivery, and intelligent materials. He has served in numerous US government panels of NSF, NIH and other Federal Agencies. Among others he serves in the Nanotechnology Technical Advisory Group of the President. In addition he has served as a member of the Advisory Boards of eleven companies and as a consultant of more than 60 companies, law firms and brokerage firms. He received a Dipl. Eng. from NTU Athens (1971) and an Sc. D. from MIT (1973).
Peppas originated the novel muco- and bioadhesive systems that interact molecularly with the mucus and tissue and have been able to prolong bioavailability of proteins and peptides in the blood. He was the first to develop novel toxic-free poly(vinyl alcohol) gels. These gels became very successful articular cartilage replacement systems and for in situ replacement of vocal cords, a successful medical procedure. His group pioneered the use of hydrogels in drug delivery applications, including epidermal bioadhesive systems and systems for the release of theophylline, proxyphylline, diltiazem, and oxprenolol. More recently, he has developed new technologies of oral delivery systems for insulin and other proteins. Peppas has also developed feedback control devices, such as glucose-sensitive microsensors that can respond to abnormal glucose levels by releasing incorporated insulin to the blood at desired rates. Such feedback control systems could be perfected for use in treatment of diabetes. As a result of his work, a number of biomedical polymers and commercial delivery devices have been launched.
Peppas is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (USA) and the Académie Nationale (France). He is a Past-Chair of the College of Fellows of AIMBE, a Past-President of the Society for Biomaterials, a Past-President of the Controlled Release Society, a past Director of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), an inaugural Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering and Materials Research Societies, a founding Fellow of AIMBE and the Society for Biomaterials, and a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, AIChE, AAAS and the American Society for Engineering Education.
An international ambassador of pharmaceutical sciences and biomedical engineering, he has received honorary doctorates in pharmacy from the Universities of Ghent (Belgium), Parma (Italy), and Athens (Greece). In addition, he has been a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Geneva, Paris (Orsay), Parma, Pavia, Naples, Berlin (Free University), Santiago de Compostela, Complutense (Madrid), Hoshi (Tokyo), Hacettepe (Ankara), Athens, Hebrew (Jerusalem) and Nanyang University (Singapore).
He has published more than 1,050 refereed publications, 350 proceedings and 450 abstracts, and is the inventor of 35 US and international patents. He is the coauthor or coeditor of 33 books and volumes, including the classic “Hydrogels in Medicine and Pharmacy”, a standard reference in the field of biomaterials with more than 6,000 citations, and of two pioneering monographs on bionanotechnology that appeared in the past five years. His pioneering contributions have attracted more than 28,000 citations making him one of the most cited chemical or biological scientists in the world and one of the three most cited biomedical engineers. Of particular note is his lifetime effort to rationalize the design and development of biomaterials, drug delivery systems and medical devices. This has led to the development of the mathematical and physicochemical foundations of these fields including several theories and equations, widely used now in biomedical engineering. These include the Peppas equation (for the analysis of the abnormal and highly non-Fickian release and delivery of drugs, peptides and proteins from controlled release devices), the Peppas-Merrill equation (for the analysis of protein transport through biomedical membranes), the Brannon-Peppas theory (the first theory to analyze the behavior of intelligent, ionic gels in multicomponent biological fluids), the Huang-Peppas interpenetration theory of tethered structures across biological tissues, and the Peppas-Ritger correlation which has more than 1,000 citations in the last 15 years. His modeling, biomaterials, cellular and drug delivery research has been funded continuously since 1980 by NIH and since 1978 by NSF.
Portfolio Company Personnel
Donald E. Owens III, Ph.D.
Director of Research
Donald E. Owens III, Ph.D. serves as Director of Research for Emergent Technologies, Inc. (ETI) portfolio company Coradyn Biosystems, LLC.
Dr. Owens joined Coradyn in February of 2008, and holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin. During his thesis work under Professor Nicholas A. Peppas, Dr. Owens co-developed a patented novel metal-polymer nanocomposite particle system for molecular recognition and intelligent drug delivery applications. Prior to joining Coradyn, he worked in both the petroleum industry at ExxonMobil and the consumer product industry at Proctor & Gamble. During his time at ExxonMobil he developed novel polymer based treatments for enhanced oil recovery and was co-inventor on two patents related to this technology. While at Proctor & Gamble, Dr. Owens worked in a variety of R&D and formulation roles including new formulation development in the antiperspirants division, prototype development and pilot plant scale-up in the hair care division, and upstream product development in the skin care division.
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