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Sciperio, Inc., Announces Biotechnology and Water Harvesting Contracts

STILLWATER, OK, October 1, 2002 (BUSINESSWIRE) - Sciperio announced successful contract procurements from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Dr. William Warren, President of Sciperio, announced a $10.8 million contract under DARPA's Engineered Tissue Constructs Program for the development of an Artificial Lymph Node (ALN). According to Dr. Warren, the ALN will be able to "elicit immune responses where the body normally wouldn't get one for things like biological warfare pathogens, cancer tumors and the list goes on and on." It is hypothesized that designer tissue-engineered scaffolds endowed with appropriate cytokines and biomolecules will help attract and extend the life of dendritic cells, and then activate them appropriately to enable innate and/or adaptive immune responses in native lymph nodes via optimal presentation of antigens. Sciperio is leading a consortium for this 18-month effort. Members of the research group include the Dana-Farber Cancer Research Institute (Harvard), the Whitehead Institute (MIT), the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the La Jolla Institute of Allergy and Immunology (University of California-San Diego), Purdue University, the University of Central Florida, and Oklahoma State University.

Also announced are two DARPA contracts under the agency's Water Harvesting Initiative. Sciperio is the prime contractor on a project to develop a Lorentz Ionic Separation Apparatus (LISA) device that will serve water purification needs by allowing the desalination and purification processes to be performed "many times more efficient[ly] than the current state of the art," according to Dr. Edward Knobbe, Vice President and Chief Technical Officer. Dr. Knobbe also announced a subcontract to Albuquerque-based NanoPore, Inc., for an effort to develop methods to extract water from air. Dr. Knobbe says that the outcome of the projects "will make an important difference in Stillwater, the citizens of Oklahoma and across the nation as we work to advance solutions which provide opportunities for economic growth and improved quality of life." Together, project funding totals approximately $4.1 million over a period of 18 months.

Sciperio is a future-minded advanced research-and-development firm specializing in engineering, lasers and photonics, computer science, electrically large but physically small antennas, materials science, sensing, and biophysics. Technological advancements are spun into subsidiary companies or licensed out to manufacturers, distributors, or marketing companies. Research funding comes primarily from DARPA and other federal sources.