Woodard Lab Discovery
CHOSEN A TOP 10 INNOVATION FOR 2013
In its December 2013 issue, The Scientist magazine named a product derived from a discovery in the research laboratory of Ronald W. Woodard, PhD, as one of the Top 10 Innovations for 2013. The selection was made by a six-person panel of scientific and business leaders recruited by The Scientist magazine.
The product, ClearColi, manufactured by Lucigen, is the first-ever line of Escherichia colithat lacks the potentially lethal endotoxin lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Instead, ClearColi expresses a nontoxic LPS precursor called lipid IVA.
Researchers using E. coli as a model organism have long recognized its Jekyll and Hyde nature. E. coli can be a biological mainstay or a potentially deadly pathogen, depending upon the thoroughness of the purification process needed to tame it.
The discovery of KPM22 — the name given to this particular E. coli form — was made by Timothy Meredith, PhD, then a graduate student in Dr. Woodard’s lab. To help validate this discovery, Meredith and Woodard enlisted the aid of Adjunct Professor Uwe Mamat, PhD, a microbiologist at the Research Center Borstel in Germany. Mamat confirmed Meredith’s finding, and then helped refine KPM22.
Meredith, Woodard, Mamat, and collaborators published their initial results in 2006 (ACS Chem Biol, 1:33-42). They were subsequently approached by Research Corporation Technologies (RCT), a firm that commercializes technologies emerging from academia. RCT acquired the patent from Woodard’s group, helped them develop the product, and then licensed the technology to Lucigen, which released ClearColi in May 2013 as an LPS-free strain of E. coli for protein production.
"The Scientist honor is a testament to the research ability of Ron and his team,” remarks College of Pharmacy Dean Frank J. Ascione. “The fact that a discovery that originated in his lab has been selected one of the best of 2013 illustrates the world-class research that is conducted at our college, every day.”
